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Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, N. Y. 

FI\^ AEROPLANES IN FLIGHT AT THE SAME TIME. 

An exceptionally g-ood picture taken at the recent Airship meeting at Belmont Park, N. T., 
which shows the different makes. From the top, Wright Biplane, Curtiss Biplane, Bleriot Mono- 
plane, Antionette Monoplane, Farman Biplani. 



The Fireside Library 
of Knowledge 



A Pictorial Library for Home Reading, covering all the very 

latest events in the Workshops of the Industrial, 

Scientific and Natural Worid. 



A GRAPHIC ACCOUNT OF THE AMAZING ACHIEVEMENTS WHICH BEST 

TELL OF THE GENIUS, SPIRIT AND ENERGY OF THE AGE AND 

DEPICT THE GRAND MARCH OF IMPROVEMENT IN THE 

VARIOUS DOMAINS OF HUMAN ACTIVITY. 

WONDERFUL INDEED IS THIS WORLD'S WORKSHOP, FOR ITS DOORS ARE OPEN WIDE 

AND ALL THAT IS WITHIN CAN BE SEEN AND UNDERSTOOD— WHETHER IT BE 

IN AN AIRSHIP ABOVE THE CLOUDS, UPON OR UNDER THE SEA, IN THE 

CITY, TOWN OR COUNTxY; ALL THAT HAS BEEN WROUGJIT BY 

MAN FOR THE PROGRESS AND ADVANCEMENT OF THE 

WORLD IS ARRAYED UNDER THE BROAD HEAD 

"THE WORLD'S WORKSHOP." 

A Comprehensive Volume of live subjects so- presented as to make it 

equally adaptable for pleasant reading, ready reference, 

accurate instruction or careful study. 

By 

\SI T To/-L-rr>'in A/f T7 Author of "Flying Machines, Construction and Operation," 
Y¥ . J. jav^lVllldll, iVX. X^., "A B C of the Motor Cycle-!" "Facts for Motorists," etc. 

Trumbull White Noted Traveler and Author 

Ferdinand Ellsworth Gary, A. M. Ltwri^'^r''"*"''"" 

EMBELLISHED AND ILLUMINATED WITH 

FIVE HUNDRED PHOTOGRAPHIC ILLUSTRATIONS 



A 






;^^ 



Copyright 1914 

by 

L. H. WALTER 



NOV -5 1814 

€)3!,A3S7360 
400/ 



TO THE 

MEN AND AVOMEN 

IN 

EVERY ^VALK OF LIFE 

AT HO 

BY AMBITIOX ANO IXDL'STR'¥ 

nAVE ACCOMl»LISIIKIJ 

THE MA.RVELS AND AVOXDERS 

l»ORTRA.YED IX 

The AVorld's Workshop. 




INTRODUCTION 



This is the Marvelous Age, the age of triumphant Progress. Follow the records 
of mankind down through all the centuries scrutinize the achievements of the race, 
and more and more conspicuous becomes the fact that in no other period of the Avorld 
have such wonderful advances in material and industrial progress been made. With- 
in the last decade Ave have seen hundreds of inventions and discoveries, any one of 
which would be sufficient to illuminate a whole century of the Middle Ages. 

The history of man is shown in his works. From the days of the cave and 
cliff dAvellers, the days of stone hatchets and bronze tools, the days of primitive life 
and primitive emotions, Ave have come to a day Avhen the race is housed and fed and 
clothed and enlightened as never before, with improvement still a constant tendency. 
A palace in medieval times did not contain the genuine comforts of a mechanic's home 
of today. A Monarch tAvo centuries ago could not have half the real conveniences or the 
luxuries at his command that are easily in the possession of any modern householder. 
So, it is of high interest to examine the Avorkshops of today, to observe the sources and 
the methods of the amazing actiA'ities that are enthroned in our high places. 

Inventions have had to face oppositions throughout the Avhole history of the 
Avorld, even until today. The self -binding reaper was one of the triumphs of modern 
invention in the mechanical field, but it Was riotously assailed as revolutionary and 
disastrous to industry by mobs of agricultural laborers Avho saAv their occupation A'an- 
ishing. Yet the broad prairies of the Great West have been brought under cultiva- 
tion, and homes and employment have been created for millions, by the improvement 
in agricultural machinery. The typesetting machine was opposed because one Avould 
do the Avork of several hand compositors, and many men Avould be discharged, but 
ncAvspapers have multiplied and enlarged by its introduction, and the whole craft has 
ukimately benefited thereby. 

In the volume presented herewith, it has been planned to put in the possession 
of the reader such an array of facts and information of genuinely educational charac- 
ter as would enable him to observe clearly the greatness of this industrial age and its 
tendencies. The methods and results of the great industrial and commercial under- 
takings of the world ; the modern Avorld of invention, discovery and scientific enlight- 
enment ; the more notcAA^orthy Avorks of nature Avhich bear upon man and his achieve- 
ments, and a mass of matter concerning the things we need to knoAV in every channel 
of human activity and interest — these are the general contents of the volume in hand. 

The Avork is not a history, though it contains much of historical enlightenment. 
It is not an encyclopedia, though it contains an encyclopedic volume of information. 
Instead of these it is a book that tells Avhat is being done in the World's Workshops 
today, for reading, for reference, for education and for study. In it a mass of material 
has been so arranged by a natural classification as to be readily at hand for convenient 
use for any purpose. Under the general heading of The World's Workshop are in- 
cluded accounts of the great commercial, manufacturing, industrial and financial un- 



8 INTRODUCTION 

dertakings which have risen so rapidly of late years. Their interesting phases are ex- 
plained and pictured and the great cities of the world contribute to these pages. 

The triumphs of modern science, invention and discovery are shown in start- 
ling array, an evidence of the capacity of the human mind to encompass almost any 
achievement that genius suggests. 

The works of nature, which outvie all the deeds of man, are an exhaustless field 
of inquiry and interest. Here such are selected as are commanding in their impor- 
tance and of immediate interest at the present day for some special reason that brings 
them into prominence. 

Then again, as a source of varied information of general scope, are included the 
multitude of subjects under the comprehensive heading, "Things we all should know," 
a treasury of facts sufficient to fill a whole volume, if in more expanded form. 

"With the assurance that this work will command and justify attention by its 
plan and execution, placing readily at hand as it does the information for which every- 
one is seeking in regard to the world, its conditions and its activities today, it is pre- 
sented herewith to the reader. 

It is unnecessary to suggest that in a work of such magnitude the editors have 
had recourse to extremely varied sources of information. Based on the fundamental 
purpose of having its facts brought up to the very latest possible moment, they had 
to be sought far and wide, sometimes in places little accessible to the usual reader. 
Encyclopedic as the work is in many features and characteristics, it is not from the 
encyclopedias that its matter could be culled. Those ponderous and valuable works 
are necessarily years behind their publishers' dates in the contents of the volumes, and 
except in the unchangeable things of the world — and there do not appear to be many 
such nowadays — they must be supplemented by later information at the very time they 
are issued, if the reader is not to be led astray. 

With the desire to occupy a field created for itself, and therefore peculiarly its 
own, the present work has kept timeliness in the foreground, and its pages are abso- 
lutely "up to date." 

Whatever measure of success has been achieved in the effort to produce a 
worthy work must be credited in common to the liberal scope on which it was plan- 
ned by the publishers, the able editorial and literary assistance rendered by the spe- 
cialists who shared in the writing and compilation of it, and the generosity invariably 
shown by all who were approached in the search for information or photographs 
which were needed to assist the undertaking. It is a pleasure, no less than an obliga- 
tion, to acknowledge these essential aids with the utmost cordiality. Rarely, if ever, 
has such a noteworthy collection of views of the world's industries and industrial 
processes been gathered Avithin a single vo ume, and the series of illustrations in the 
other divisions of the work are no less str king in their variety and the freshness of 
the subjects chosen. Energy and liberality and courteous cooperation on the part of 
many from whom rare and valuable photographs had to be obtained after considerable 
difficulty and expense, united to make such elaborate illustration possible. 

In like manner the search for new and interesting facts, which, indeed, had to 
precede the quest for illustrations, met a hearty response from the men who know 
things and the men who do things all ovei the world. Most of the facts herein con- 
tained have been gathered at first hand from the original sources of information, by 



INTRODUCTION 



9 



travel, by research or by interview, and from such sources may be accepted as accurate 
within the limitations of human imperfection. 

"Where books or other printed matter contained facts that would serve in this 
connection they have been levied upon appreciatively for a share of their learning, 
adapted and modified to suit the present purposes. Such writings are properly included 
in the foregoing acknowledgments. 

THE EDITORS. 







ZEPPELIN'S DIRIGIBLE WAR BALLOON. 







CoK^right, by V. A. Kreidler. 

THOMAS A. EDISON, THE WORLD'S MOST FAMOUS INVENTOR. 

Photographed in front of his office at his Ogden, N. J., iron mines. This picture of Edison in his 

working clothes is very life-like, and the only one of its kind that has been taken. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 

Wonderful Progress Made in the Entrancing Field of Invention and 

Discovery 



Page 

Introduction , 7 

Flying Machines, Aeroplanes, Biplanes, Monoplanes, Dirigible Balloons and War 

Balloons , 23 

Wireless Telegraphy 37 

xUitomatic Telephones 45 

Monster Railway Depots 46 

The World's Greatest Industry— The Railway 47 

Electric Block Signals 55 

Tree Cutting by Electricity 5S 

Great Railway Consolidations 59 

Building of the Great Panama Canal 63 

Largest of Power Plants , 66 

Busiest Canal in the World .• 67 

^Making a New Channel 70 

Moving Two Miles of River 71 

Largest Dam in the World 71 

The "One-Rail" Railway 72 

Iron and Steel Industries 75 

Coal Mining and Coke IMaking - 83 

Zinc and Other Products of the Mines , 93 

The "Soo's" Great Power Canal 95 

The World's Stupendous Granary 96 

IMechanieal Process of a Great Flour ]\Iill 97 

Baking Bread in Electric Ovens 100 

The Grain Production of the United States 102 

Lumbering in American Forests ■. , , 104 

Textile Fabrics in America , 110 

Power, Its Development and Transmission 113 

T"p-to-Date IMethods in Farming 118 

The U. S. Government's Aid to Farmers 120 

Burbank ' ' The Wizard " 123 

How Binder Twine Is Secured 124 

Irrigation 125 

Irrigation of the Nile Region. 127 

Olive Culture on an Extensive Scale 131 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 

Page 

How Rubber Is Made Today 134 

Orange Groves and Their Product 137 

Coffee, Tea and Chocolate 110 

Beet Sugar and Cane Sugar 115 

Automobiles and Their Development , 151 

Racing and Speed of Automobiles 155 

Gas Engines — The New Power 157 

The World's Meat Market— The Chicago Stock Yards 159 

Process of Slaughtering 163 

Refrigeration of Meats, etc 169 

Construction of the ' ' Sky-Scraper " 175 

Paper, Its History and How It Is Made 188 

How a Great Newspaper Is Made 189 

How Books and Magazines Are Illustrated 194 

Locomotives and Their Construction 197 

The American Industrial Invasion of Europe 201 

Largest Schooner in the World 203 

Gigantic Ocean Steamships , 207 

Shipping on the Great Lakes 209 

Progress in Methods of Naval Warfare 217 

]\Iaximite, the New Explosive 222 

Naval Battles in the Future 225 

The Submarine Vessel 227 

Floating Ducks for Men-of-War 229 

The First Cable Across the Pacific Ocean 231 

Phases of Street Life in a Great City 236 

Glass and Its Uses 239 

The Work of the Potter 241 

How Pianos Have Multiplied 242 

The Wonderful Self-Playing Piano 245 

Salt and Its Production 247 

Financial Methods of Today 253 

Where Our Money Is Made 257 

Eight Million Dollars in One Check 259 

Acid-Blast Halftones 234 

Rice, a Profitable Crop 261 

Killing the Orchard Pests 261 

Protecting the People 's Food 262 

Housecleaning by Suction 262 

The World's Principal Products 263 

Rubber Growing in ]\Iexico 264 

Opium and Its Prodtietion 265 

Tobacco Raising and Cigar Making 267 

How Trunks Are Made 274 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 

Page 

Ice, Artificial and Natural 277 

Ivory, How Obtained and Used 280 

Ostrich Farms, In Africa and California 284 

Liquid Air — Its Wonderful Power 285 

Making Stained Glass Windows 289 

Luxfer Prisms as Light Transmitters ., 292 

Radium and Polonium 293 

Snapshots of the Human Voice 295 

The Solar Furnace 296 

A Telegraph Machine That Prints 297 

Tin IMaking 299 

Poultry Killing by Machinery 303 

The Wireless Telephone 305 

Silk Cocoons and the Silk Industry 311 

Making Lead Pencils 315 

THINGS WE ALL SHOULD KNOW— PART II. 

Man's Hunt for the North Pole 317 

Electric ' ' Scarecrows " 319 

Bringing the Dead to Life 320 

War on Flies and Mosquitos 321 

Remedy "No. 606" and Its Use : 321 

Great Increase in Embezzlements 322 

Generous Gifts by Americans 322 

Outdoor Cure for Consumption 323 

Fatalities to Hunters 323 

Epidemics and War Losses 323 

Hague Peace Conference 323 

Great Catastrophes 325 

Financial Developments in 1910 328 

Standard Time Over the World 330 

Civil Service and Its Laws 333 

Compulsory Education 334 

Public Libraries, Their Growth and Administration 336 

American Colleges and Their Growth 338 

American College Sports 341 

Ocean, Lake and Mountain Resorts 344 

Winter Sports in Northern Cities 345 

Horse Racing the World Over 348 

The German Emperor's American Yacht 353 

The Second and Greater Brooklyn Bridge . 354 

How Maps and Globes Are Made 355 

Watches and Clocks 358 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 

Page 

Mirrors and Their Manufacture 361 

Art Work in Brass 363 

Bells and How They Are Made 365 

How Artesian Wells Are Bored 368 

Discovei'ies in Medicine 370 

Special Cults and Cures 372 

Systems of Medical Treatment 373 

Elements of Physical Health 374 

The Pulse in Health 375 

Contagious and Eruptive Diseases 375 

First Aid to the Injured — What to Do in Emergencies 376 

Antidotes for Poisons 376 

Special Poisons and Antidotes 377 

Rules in Case of Fire 377 

Accidents in the United States 378 

Life and Death Rates 378 

Cremation • 378 

Legal Pacts and Forms 379 

Single Tax : Its Meaning and Its Theories 383 

How Fires Are Extinguished 384 

Asbestos Cloth That Will Not Burn 386 

Mineral Wool and Its Uses 389 

How Artificial Silk Is Made. 391 

Buttons, Their Invention and Manufacture 392 

In a Type Foundry ■ 395 

Houses of Liquid Stone 399 

NOTEWORTHY FACTS OF GREAT INTEREST— PART HI. 

Settlements and Migrations of Nationalities in the United States 401 

Greatest Facts in the History of the U. S 403 

How Immigrants Come 405 

Immigration Statistics 408 

Our American Archives and National Institutes 408 

Population Areas of the U. S 409 

Facts About Our Postal Service 411 

The Region of the Yukon 415 

Great Fur Trading Companies of Canada 416 

The Walled City of the North 418 

Pilgrims and Shrines in Canada 419 

AMAZING WONDERS OF NATURE— PART IV. 

Greenland and Its Glaciers 421 

Iceland and Its Geysers 421 

The Great Lava Desert of Iceland 423 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 

Page 

The Gulf Stream , 423 

The Maelstrom 424 

The Spectre of the Broeken 425 

Famous Fountains of Palestine 42i) 

Saghalien, a Paradox of Climate -. 427 

The Arabian Desert 428 

The Great Trees of California 429 

IIow Glaciers and Icebergs Are Made , 431 

Trinidad and Its Bituminous Lake , 435 

Death Valley 436 

Borax and Its Production 439 

The Grand Canyon of Arizona 442 

The Dakota "Bad Lands" 447 

Crater Lake, an Oregon Wonde.' 449 

Great Ccives of the World 451 

The Land of the [Midnight Sun ". 454 

Niagara Falls 457 

Wonders of the Deep Sea 459 

Extinct :\Ionsters 462 

^lan and Nature. Before the Deluge 468 

SOLID FOOD FOR SOUND MINDS— PAST V. 

The Country Boy's Chances in a Large City 473 

The Value and Charm of a Good Letter 47 i 

The Courtesies of Life 475 

The High School's Part in Education 477 

Modern Methods of Commercial Education 480 

Sparks of Science 482 

Points of LaAv 484 

Thoughts About Home 478 

Ocean Cables in War Time 483 

Conservation of the Forests 487 

The Weather Bureau and Its Work 489 

How the Modern Theatre Is Conducted 494 

Gathering Cork 498 

Population of Cities in U. S. of More Than 100.000 499 

Population of Cities in U. S. Less Thau 100,000 500 




CONQUERING THE AIR. 
Wright Bros.' Aeroplane In full flight. This photograph was taken when Mr. Orville 
Wright was establishing the world's record of over 38 miles in 1 hour and 14 
minutes. 



THE WORLD'S WORKSHOP 

Wonderful Progress Made in the Entrancing Field of Invention and 

Discovery 



FLYING MACHINES 



It is only a little over seven years since 
the first practical motor-driven flying ma- 
chine -was put in operation. In that com- 
paratively short time remarkable advance 
has been made, not only in methods of con- 
striction, but as regards systematic opera- 
tion as Avell, and what was at first regarded 
as simply an interesting scientific experi- 



ment of no particular commercial value, has 
been developed to a stage of assured use- 
fulness. 

It was on December 17, 1903, that Orville 
and Wilbur Wright, of Dayton, Ohio, aston- 
ished the world by the operation of a motor- 
driven aeroplane. On this occasion the 
machine, driven by one of the Wright 




MOISANT (NOW DEAD) MAKING FLIGHT IN BLERIOT MONOPLANE FROM PARIS TO LONDON. 



24 



TEE WORLD'S WORKSHOP 



brothers, traveled 852 
feet in the air in 59 
seconds, an average of 
about 10 miles an hour. 
This was very slow 
compared with the 
speed of 60 and 70 
miles an hour now be- 
ing made, but it was 
enough to demonstrate 
the fact that the prob- 
lem of aerial naviga- 
tion in heavier-than-air 
machines has been 
solved in a practical 
manner. It was a radi- 
cal departure from the 
old method of bal- 
looning in which the 
aeronaut Avas at the 
mercy of the Avinds, and had no con- 
trol of his movements. There is noth- 
ing wonderful in the fact that a bag of 
gas will sustain a certain weight in the 
air and be driven about by the wind until 
the buoyancy of the gas is lost. This was 





GLENN CURTISS, INA^ENTOR OF THE CURTISS 
MACHINE. 



WTLBUR -WRIGHT OPER.\TING A WRIGHT BIPLANE. 

made plain by Joseph and Steven Mont- 
golfier, of France, in 1783. But the idea 
that a machine many times heavier than 
the air, and absolutely without balloon at- 
tachment of any kind, could be made to 
float in the atmosphere, be raised and low- 
ered, and steered in any desired direction 
at the will of the operator, was a seeming 
impossibility to the great mass uf people. 

Experiments with the purpose of pro- 
ducing a practical heavier-than-air machine 
began in 1843, Avhen Henson, an English- 
man, constructed a steam-driven aeroplane. 
The motive poAver (20 h. p.) Avas deficient, 
however, and the macliine did not Avork 
satisfactorily. 

Scientists then turned their attention to 
perfecting a glider, Avithout motive poAver, 
in order to determine the most adaptable 
form of construction, the effect of air cur- 
rents, how best to maintain equilibrium, 
amount of surface area necessary to sustain 
a given weight, and similar problems. Be- 
tAveen 1866 and 1902 glider experiments 



TEE WORLD'S WORKSHOP 



25 



were made by such men as Wenham, String- 
fellow, Renard, Phillips, Lilienthal, Pilcher, 
Heri'ing, Averj-, Chanute and others. It 
w^as the Chanute experiments, begun in 
1896, which led directly to the adoption of 
the biplane form of construction and the 
warping of the wing tips, which were no- 
table features in the first successful motor- 
driven Wright machine, and are still con- 
tinued. Mr. Chanute, in 1898, placed the 
results of his experiments at the disposal 
of the Wrights, and continued to advise and 
consult with them in all their preliminary 
work, and even after they had demon- 
strated the practicability of a power-driven 
aeroplane. Commenting upon the death of 
^Ir. Chanute, which occurred November 23, 
1910, Wilbur Wright says: 

"By the death of Mr. 0. Chanute the 
world has lost one whose labors had to an 
unusual degree influenced the course of hu- 
man progress. If he had not lived the 
entire history of progress in flying would 
have been other than it has been, for he 
encouraged not only the Wright brothers 
to persevere in their experiments, but it 



was due to his missionary trip to France 
in 1903 that the Voisins, Bleriot, Parman, 
DeLagrauge and Archdeacon were led to 
undertake a revival of aviation studies in 
that country, after the failure of the efforts 
of Ader and the Frencli government in 1897 
had left everyone in idle despair." 

Aside from Henson's experiments in 1843, 
other power-driven aeroplanes antedate the 
Wright, but none of them were successful. 
Sir Hiram ]\Iaxim constructed a macliine in 
1888 with a surface area of 3,900 square 
feet, a veritable monster alongside of the 
modern machines with surfaces of from 110 
to 500 square feet. IMaxim's aeroplane was 
equipped with a steam engine (the gasoline 
engine was at that time undeveloped) and 
weighed complete about 7,000 pounds. It 
met Avith disaster on the first practical test. 

In 1896, Professor Langley, of the Smith- 
sonian Insitution, obtained a grant of .$5,000 
from the United States government, and 
constructed an aeroplane with a 27 h. p. 
steam engine with a speed of 12,000 r. p. m. 
On the second trial the machine collapsed 
and fell a total wreck into the Potomac 




GLIDER, THE FORERUNNER OF THE PRESENT FLYING MACHINE. 



26 



TEE WORLD'S WORKSHOP 




LEGAGNAUX, FRENCH AVIATOR, MAKING FLIGHT IN SOMMER BIPLANE. 



river. Mr. ]\Ianley, the assistant of Prof. 
Langley, vlio was tlie pilot of the macliine, 
was killed. 

In September, 1908, the Wright machine 
had been so far perfected that Orville 
Wright took it to Washington to compete 
for the government prize of $25,000. This 
amount of money was offered for a machine 
that Avould have a speed of 40 miles an hour 




in still air, carry fuel for a flight of 125 
miles, and two people with a combined 
weight of 360 pounds. On this occasion he 
fell just short of the requirements, making 
36 miles in 57 minutes 31 seconds, and on 




FIRST EXPRESS BY AEROPLANE. 



MLLE. DUTRIEUX. SUCCESSFUL WOMAN 
AVIATOR. 



TEE WORLD'S WORKSHOP 



27 



a second trial SSy^ miles in 1 hour, 2 min- 
utes, 15 seconds. 

On July 30, 1909, under new conditions, 
Orville Wriglit made another trial. This 
time he was successful, making a speed of 
over 42 miles an hour, carrying an army 
officer as a passenger. The government 
paid him $25,000 for the machine, and 
$5,000 as a bonus for exceeding the speed 
limit. 

CONSTEUCTION AND OPERATION. 

It is comparativelj' easy to construct an 
aeroplane so far as the theory of construc- 
tion is concerned, but the application of the 
theory calls for great care in the selection 
of material, exactitude in shaping and put- 
ting the various parts together, and the 
utmost nicety in proportioning the various 
parts so as to secure stability and ample 
weight-sustaining surface. 

Every professional aeroplane builder has 
his o-\vn ideas as to the total surface area, 
and dimensions of plane timbers, etc. The 
"Wright machine as originally put together 
consisted of two superimposed planes, each 
40 feet in length and 6 feet in width. For 



each plane there are two main longitudinal 
beams of spruce wood, about two inches 
Avide and ly^ inches thick, the advancing 
edges of the beams being beveled to an 
edge to reduce the resistance to the wind. 
These beams are held together by struts of 
spruce, about 1x1^/4 inches, in cross section 
and 5 feet long, and connected to the beams 
rigidly by means of aluminum sockets or 
angle braces. One of these struts is laid 
at the extreme ends of each frame, and 
others placed about 41/2 feet apart. The 
intervals between the struts are filled at dis- 
stances of one foot, with the ribs which 
carry the cloth covering. These ribs are 
also of spruce, but are slightly curved, and 
considerably smaller in cross section than 
the struts, being usually 1/2x1 inch. They 
are cut one foot longer than the struts, so 
the rear end will project over the rear 
beam, and thus afford a larger surface area. 
When the main beams of both planes have 
been joined by the struts, and the ribs put 
in place and clamped down, metal sockets 
are fastened to each beam exactly over the 
place where the end of the strut meets the 




SIMPLE ILLUSTRATION OF THE PRINCIPLE OF SUSTENTATION. 
A cardboard dropped from the liand will fall to the ground. The same cardboard, when thrown 
from the band will remain suspended in the air so long as it has suflacient momentum. 



28 



TEE WORLD'S WORKSHOP 



beam. Into these sockets are fitted the 
stanchions. Thete are round pieces of 
spruce, about ly^xlVa inches in cross sec- 
tion, and 4 feet in length. Their office is to 
spread the planes apart vertically, and at 
the same time help to hold them rigidly 
together. When the stanchions — there are 
just as many of these on each beam as there 





HOW THE MAN BIRD IMITATES NATURE. 

are struts — are in position on the lower 
beams, the upper plane beams, which have 
also been fitted with sockets, are placed 
over the upper ends. 

Before bringing the two surfaces together 
each plane is covered with cloth. 'This may 
be muslin or silk. Tha cloth, Avhich should 
be one yard wide, is cut into strips a trifle 



over 6 feet in length. One end of the cloth 
is glued, wrapped around the front beam 
and tacked to it with small copper tacks, 
and then stretched tightly backward over 
the ribs, being fastened to the latter at 
spaces of one inch with copper tacks. After 
the cloth 33 in place it is treated to a coat 
of light-bodied varnish which tends to make 
it air tight. The various sections are then 
tightly braced with guy wires. 

Equipment with motor and propeller 
depends upon the personal tastes of the 
aviator, the general object being to get an 
extreme high speed combined with the 
maximum of lightness. Four-cylinder mo- 
tors developing 50 h. p., have been con- 
structed as light as 90 pounds, but the 
average is about 150 pounds. 

Successful operation of a flying ma- 
chine calls for a combination of coolness, 
nerve, and technical skill, especially in an 
understanding of air currents and a knowl- 
edge of what to do in case of emergency. 
A few daring operators will make ascen- 
sions when the wind is blowing from 35 to 
45 miles an hour, but the more conservative 
ones decline to start Avhen the wind is mov- 
ing at more than 25 miles, and prefer it to 
be less than that. The aviator's greatest 
danger lies in being struck by a gust or 
contrary current which will disturb the 
equilibrium of his frail craft. When this 
occurs it must be righted — restored to an 
even keel — immediately. This is done by 
manipulation of movable auxiliary planes 
known as stabilizing surfaces. On some 
machines this manipulation is effected by 
means of hand levers, in others by foot 
levers, and in still others by automatic 
devices. 

FUTURE OF AIRSHIPS. 

It is now well settled that the airship has 
a useful future. Whether it can be made 
of service as a common carrier for passen- 



TEE WORLD'S WORKSHOP 



29 




FRONT VIEW OF WRIGHT lilPLAXL:, SHOWING CURVATURE OF PLANE TIPS. 



gers aud freight is problematical. The con- 
sensus of opinions among expert aviators is 
against it. But there is an ample field for 
its use aside from commercial traffic. In 
war, scientific exploration, sport and pleas- 
ure the flying machine has an assured fu- 
ture. It will be especially valuable in scal- 
ing hitherto inaccessible mountains, in spy- 
ing out an enemy's fortifications, in cross- 
ing and making observations of deserts, and 
in carrying messages from beleagured 
toAvns. Flying machine races are already 
popular and attractive, and no less a per- 
sonage than former President Roosevelt, 



Avho made an ascent Avith Arch Hoxsey, at 
St. Louis, in November, 1910, gives strong 
testimony to the pleasurable sensations of 
a ride skywards. 

So far as known only one attempt has 
been made to utilize the flying machine in 
a commercial way, and this was more for 
purposes of demonstration and advertising, 
than for practical results. On November 7, 
1910, P. 0. Parmalee, using a Wright bi- 
plane, carried 10 bolts of silk from Dayton, 
Ohio, to Columbus, Ohio, a distance of 58.3 
miles in 59 minutes. This is the fastest 




MANNER OF TUTTING GLIDER FRAMEWORK 
TOGETHER. 
AA, main beams; BE, struts; DO. arm pieces; 
E, cross beam to hold rudder beam; F, rudder 
beam; G, socket for stanchion. 



GENERAL PLAN OF WIRING FRAME. 



30 



THE WORLD'S WORKSHOP 



time ever made in an American aeroplane, 
but it did not establish the freight-carrying 
possibilities of the machine. The load Avas 
very light — 70 pounds — and it is well 
known that there is a limit to the weight- 
sustaining power of flying machines. 
SECOEDS MADE BY AVIATORS. 

When we consider that ten years ago the 
propulsion of a flying machine through the 



teau, on M. Farman machine, with Renault 
motor: at Buc, France, 362.66 miles in 7 
hours, 45 minutes, an average of about 45 
miles an hour without a stop. 

Speed.— J. Radley at Lanark (Great Bri- 
tain) on a Bleriot monoplane with Gnome 
motor: one mile in 47:2-5 seconds, a rate 
of 75.95 miles an hour. 

Altitude. — Arch Hoxsey, at Los Angeles, 
Calif., on a Wright machine with Wright 




HELICOPTER MACHINE AS MADE BT PAUL CORNU. 



air at a speed of 10 miles an hour was con- 
sidered remarkable the fact that these ma- 
chines are now moving at the rate of 70 and 
75 miles an hour, is seemingly miraculous. 
The records to date (January 1, 1911,) are 
as follows: 

THE WORLD AT LARGE. 

Distance and Duration. — ]\Iaurice Tabu- 



motor, 11,474 feet. 

AMERICAN RECORDS. 

Distance and Duration. — A. L. Welsh, at 
St. Louis, ]\Io., on Wright machine with 
Wright motor: 120 miles in 3 hours, 11 
minutes, 55 seconds. 

Speed. — Alfred Le Blanc, at St. Louis, 
Mo., on Bleriot monoplane with Gnome mo- 



THE WORLD'S WORKSHOP 



31 




VARIOUS METHODS OF ATTACHING STANCHIONS AND GUY WIRES. 



tor: one mile in 53 seconds, a rate of 67.8 
miles an hour. 

Altitude. — Arch Hoxsey, as given above. 

Cross-Country, None-Stop. — Arch Hox- 
sey, from Springfield, 111., to Clayton, Mo., 
on a Wright machine with Wright motor: 
89% miles. 

While not constituting a record, another 
notable performance Avas that made by 
Walter Brookins, less than 20 years of age, 
when on September 29, 1910, operating a 



Wright biplane, he flew from Chicago to 
Springfield, 111., a distance of 187 miles, in 
actual flying time of 5 hours, 45 minutes, 
an average of about 33 miles an hour, most 
of the distance being made against a head 
wind of 15 miles an hour. Brookins' long- 
est continuous flight on this trip was 88 
miles, being 1% miles short of the record. 
His reason for descending at the 88-mile 
point was that it was a convenient place at 
which to obtain fuel and oil supplies. 



/ 



^OPERATES RE/KR RUDOER 
AND WARPS PLANES 
OF W/?lCrHT MACHINE 




SYSTEM OF CONTROL ON WRIGHT MACHINE. 



32 



TEE WORLD'S WORKSHOP 



The various altitude records made in 
1910, starting with 3,445 feet (which was 
considered remarkable at the time) and 
ending with 11,474 feet, are as follow 



Place. Aviator. 

Bethany Plains. Latham .. 
Los Angeles. .. .Paulhan .. 
Indianapolis . . .Brookins . . 
Indianapolis . . .Brool^ins . 

Rheims Latham ... 

Atlantic City. . .Brookins .. 

Lanark Dre.xel .... 

D'Eauville Morane 

Issy Chavez 

Mourir.elon Wynmalen 

Belmont Park. ..Johnstone 
Philadelphia . . .Drexel ... 

Pau Leg-agneux 

■ Los Angeles. .. .Hoxsey ... 



Date. 




Jan. 


7 


June 


17 


Jan. 


10 


June 


13 


July 


7 


July 


9 


Aug. 


11 


Sept. 


3 


Sept. 


8 


Oct. 


1 


Oct. 


30 


Nov. 


23 


Dec. 


9 


Dec. 


26 




92 
. 9,186 
. 9,714 
. 9,970 
.10,498 
.11,474 



SUCCESS OF FOREIGN AVIATORS. 

While American aviators were gaining 
fame by the construction and operation of 




VIEW OF WRIGHT BIPLANE FROM END. 



NEW FORM OF FRENCH AEROPLANE. 

biplanes (two-surfaced machines) foreign 
aviators were equally busy in the successful 
production and operation of monoplanes 
(one-surface machines). Of these Santos- 
Dumont and Louis Bleriot are in the front 
rank. The former has built and operated 
the smallest flying machine in the world — 
La Demoiselle. It has a surface area 
of only 110 square feet, and yet Santos- 
Dumont has made some remarkable 
flights in it. The Bleriot machine is 
somewhat larger, having 160 square 
feet of surface area. It was with this 
machine that Bleriot, on July 25, 1909, 
won world-Avide fame by crossing the 
English channel from Calais to Dover, 
making an average speed of 45 miles 
an hour. Since then monoplanes have 
fast come into public favor and now 
there are nearly a dozen different 
makes in use. Even Glen H. Curtiss. 
the American aviator, who has hithert.' 
adhered strictly to the biplane, has re 
cently produced a monoplane machine 
with which he expects to attain extreme 
speed. 

DIRIGIBLE BALLOONS. 

Great progress has also been made 
in recent years in the manufacture 
and operation of dirigible balloons. 
Foremost in this work — in the 
magnitude of his creations, at 



THE WORLD'S WORKSHOP 



least — is the veteran, Count Zeppelin, 
of Germany. He has been building 
balloons on novel lines since 1898, an 
enterprise in which he has spent all of 
his private fortune as well as $500,000 
subscribed by the German people, and 
met with many disheartening disas- 
ters. Accident followed accident, and 
even the best and largest of his air- 
ships was finally destroyed. 

The Zeppelin design includes an 
aluminum framework embracing 
seventeen gas-tight compartments. 
Over this framework is a gas-tight 
envelope of linen and silk. Over this 
again is a larger envelope of the same 
materials, the air space between the 
two bags acting as an insulator and 
preventing rapid changes of tempera- 
ture from affecting the gas. The Zep- 
pelin II, the largest of Count Zeppe- 
lin's balloons, up to the building of No. 3, 
was 448 feet long, 42 feet in diameter, held 





ARCH HOXSEY AND WALTER BROOKINS, PUPILS OF THE "WRIGHT 
BROTHERS. 



FIRST AEROPLANE COLLISION IN THE AIR. 
During an aviation meet at Milan, Italy, M. 
Thomas, in an Antoinette monoplane, ran into 
Capt. Dickson in a Farman biplane. Both men 
were seriously injured. 

446,000 cubic feet of gas, and was equipped 
with two motors of 220 h. p. On May 31, 
1909, Count Zeppelin 
and a crew of nine men 
made a continuous 
flight of nearly 900 
miles in 36 hours. All 
the Zeppelin dirigibles 
are built on the same 
plan — ■ a cylindrical, 
cigar shape. But No. 
2, as well as No. 3, Avas 
completely wrecked. 
Undaunted by the num- 
erous disasters Count 
Zeppelin, with the aid 
of the Crown Prince of 
Germany, is now (Jan- 
uary 1, 1911) planning 
to construct another 
large dirigible. 

Major von Parseval, 
of Germany ; Major. 



34 



TEE WORLD'S WORKSHOP 




EARLY WRIGHT GLIDER IN FLIGHT. 

Gross, of Prussia ; the Lebaudy brothers, of 
France, and Clement-Bayard, are other for- 
eigners who have also attained more or less 
success in the operation of dirigible bal- 
loons. The British government is using a 
dirigible in military maneuvers, and is hav- 
ing two more constructed. 

In the United States the government pur- 
chased in 1908 the dirigible constructed by 
Capt. Thomas Baldwin, and is using it in 
the army signal service. 

i^' «.' «^ 
FATALITIES AMONG AVIATORS. 
In the three years ending with December 




31, 1910, forty-five lives were lost in flying- 
machine accidents, most of them through 
the collapse of a machine owing to the 
breaking of some vital part, defect in which 
might have been detected by careful inspec- 
tion before flight. The fatality list is as 
follows : 

1908. 
Sept. 17 — Self ridge, T. E Washington 





ASCENDING. 
Wright Aeroplane rising high in tlie air like a 



BRITISH WAR BALLOON. 

1909. 

Sept. 7— Kna, Rossi Rome 

Sept. 7 — Lefebvre, E Jusivy-Sur-Orge 

Sept. 22 — Ferber, Louis P Boulogne 

Dec. 6 — Fernandez, Antonio Nice 

1910. 

Jan. 4 — Delagrange, Leon Bordeaux 

April 2 — Le Blon, H San Sebastian 

May 13 — Micheliu, Cliauvetto Lyons 

June 2 — Zoesly, Aindau Budapest 

June 4 — Popoff, M Russia 

June 17 — Speyer, E San Francisco 

June 18 — RobI, T Stettin 

July 3 — Wachtcr, Charles Rheinis 

July 12 — Rolls, Capt. C. S Bournemouth 



TEE WORLD'S WORKSHOP 



35 



Jair 13 — Erblcch, Oscar, and fonr com- 
panions Germany 

Jul J- 25 — Kinet, Danial Ghent 

Aue. 3 — Kinet, Nicliolas Brussels 

Aug. 30 — Vivaldi, Lieut Rome 

Sept. 7 — Van Maasdyk, A Arnlieim 

Sept. 25 — Poillot, Edmund Chartres 

Sept. 27 — Chavez, G Alps 

Sept. 2S — Haas, H Metz 

Scvpt. 29 — Plochmann MuUhauseu 

Oct. 7 — Macievlch, Capt St. Petersburg 

Oct. 23 — Madiot, Capt Douai 

Oct. 2.>^Mente, Lieut Magdeburg 

Oct. 26 — Blanchard, Fernando Issy 

Oct. 27 — Saglietti, Lieut Centosello 

Nov. 17 — Johnstone, Ralph Denver 

Dec. 3 — M. Camerara and passenger Rome 

Dec. 4 — Archer, AValter Salida, Colo. 

Dec. 5 — Canunarota Centosello 

Dec. 21 — Grace, C. S English Channel 

Dec. 26 — Brown, Frederick Havana 

Dec. 26 — Piccolo, Senor San Paulo 

Dec. 2S — Leffort, Alexander Paris 

Dec. 28 — Panlla, Marquis Paris 

Dec. 29 — De Caumont, Lieut St. Cyr 

Dec. 31 — Meisant J. B Xew Orleans 

Dec. 31 — Hoxsey, Arch Los Angeles 

!Many of these fatalities were directly in- 
duced by the daring of the aviators. In 



order to win fame and money they took 
chances which were death inviting. 

&' U? «:' 
THE INCENTIVE TO RISK. 

The question is often asked, "why should 
aviators willingly and knowingly attempt 
feats which are extra hazardous?" An 
answer may be found in the accompanying 
table showing the money winnings of well- 
known operators in 1910 : 



Paulhan $82,052 

Latham 60,614 

Morane 52,780 

Rougler 52,300 

Chavez 49,233 

Grahame-White . 48,700 

Leblanc 32,800 

Farman 23,390 

Johnstone . . 19,108 

Legagneux 17,900 

Van den Born . . 17,740 

Dickson 17,230 

Effimoft 16,711 



Glenn Curtiss . . . 16,600 

Cattaneo 16,090 

Aubrun 14,660 

3Ioisant 13,550 

Comte de Lambert 12,480 

BrooMns 11,900 

Metrot 11,200 

AVagr 11,050 

Simon . 10,080 

Olieslaegers 10,200 

Drexel 10,100 

Hamilton 10,000 

Blerlot 8,400 




GERMAN WAR BALLOONS IN PRACTICE NEAR BERLIN. 



36 



THE WORLD'S WORKSHOP 



Forty-three others won amounts ranging 
from $7,708 (Hoxsey) to $1,034 (Baroness 
de Laroche). These forty-three divided 
$135,731, an average of over $3,386 to each 
contestant. To establish a record or per- 
form some daring feat brings fame, and 



fame brings money. Walter Brookins, a 
young pupil of the Wright brothers, was 
paid $10,000 in September last (1910) for 
making an exhil)ition flight from Chicago 
to Springfield, 111., in a little over seven 
hours. . 







To /?^/{R /RUDP^R 



SYSTEM OF CONTROL, ON FARMAN MACHINE. 



WIRELESS TELEGRAPHY 



A Triumph of Modern Discovery 



Today tlie traveler on a transatlantic 
steamship, far out in midocean, can write 
a message to his friends at home, hand it to 
an operator who sits at the side 
of a simple instrument in a 
cabin of the vessel, and for a 
few cents a word it will be 
transmitted across the interven- 
ing space, over the stormy sea, 
to a receiving station on shore, 
and thence by land telegraph 
wires to its destination, all with 
the speed of electricity. 

It is only forty-three years 
since the announcement was 
made to an incredulous world 
that the Atlantic cable was a 
STiccess and that telegraphic 
messages could be sent under 
the ocean from America to 
Europe. Many people remem- 
ber the enthusiasm with which 
this amazing achievement was 
greeted, when the conviction 
was established that it was really true. 
Today the world is still enjoying the re- 
sults of new scientific discoveries that are 
constantly being made, and the ones that 
seemed most marvelous when they were first 
announced, become commonplace after a 




GUGLIELMO MARCONI 
WORKING CLOTHES, 



37 



few years have passed. Most conspicuous 
of all the recent discoveries in science, and 
farthest reaching in its possible ultimate 
effect upon our material affairs, 
is the successful system of wire- 
less telegraphy, developed and 
established by the genius of the 
young inventor, Marconi. It 
was a triumph when his experi- 
ments resulted in communica- 
tion at will without wires over 
distances . of 250 miles. But 
hardly had the public become 
accustomed to this fact, when 
the announcement was made 
upon the authority of the young 
inventor himself, verified by 
unmistakable evidence, that on 
December 12, 1901, he had 
received signals across the At- 
lantic bj this same system of 
wireless telegraphy. Wonder- 
ful as it was, the world li.as 
become so accustomed of late 
years to scientific discoveries which, but 
a short time ago, would have seemed 
extravagant and impossible claims, that 
this announcement was promptly received 
as an accepted fact, incredulity existing 
hardly anywhere. The interested public 



38 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



had long before learned that Mr. Mar- 
coni's announcements were never made 
until he was sure of his facts, and con- 
sequently people did not need to be re- 
assured when this greatest wonder of all 
was announced. It was a red letter day in 
the history of scientific progress, that win- 
ter day in Newfoundland, and yet it was 
the direct result of a logical, persistent and 




MARCONI AT HIS RECEIVING INSTRUMENT. 



patient effort on the part of Marconi, the 
result of years of preparation, study, and 
experimentation, leading directly to the 
goal of his ambition. 

Let us examine the process by which mes- 
sages are thus transmitted through space 
without the aid of connecting wires through 
which they may pass. Those of us unfa- 
miliar with electrical apparatus are accus- 
tomed to consider only such electrical 
streams as take their way along wires. But 
there are a great many other electric 



streams unconfined by wires, which can be 
quite as telegraphic as if they kept to paths 
of copper and steel. Discoveries suggesting 
this fact were made as long ago as 1842, 
and others looking in the same direction 
have followed. Marconi makes no claim 
to being the first to experiment along the 
lines which led to wireless telegraphy, or 
the first to signal for short distances with- 
out wires. But in spite 
of his prompt acknowl- 
edgment to other work- 
ers in his field it has re- 
mained for Marconi to 
perfect a commercial 
system and put it into 
practical working order 
over great distances. 

The two first essen- 
tials in wireless teleg- 
raphy, as Marconi has 
developed it, are the 
vertical wire, which he 
suspends in the open 
air to catch his mes- 
sages, and the ''cohe- 
rer," which by its 
exquisite sensitiveness 
makes it possible to 
register the messages as 
received. Electrical waves cannot be seen, 
but electricians have learned how to incite 
them, to a certain extent how to control 
them, and have devised cunning instru- 
ments which register their presence. These 
waves have long been utilized for sending 
messages through wires. Marconi started 
with the assumption that inasmuch as elec- 
trical waves may pass through the ether 
which fills all space as readily as through 
wires, if these waves could be controlled they 
would evidently convey messages as easily 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



39 



as the wires. So he had to make an in- 
strument which would produce a peculiar 
kind of wave, and another apparatus which 
would receive and register this wave at a 
distance from the first. 

The transmitter which resulted from his 
experiments is an apparatus from which a 
current generated by a battery and passing 
in brilliant sparks between the two brass 
balls is radiated from a wire suspended on 



but by the time the waves have passed over 
a long distance they are so weak that they 
could not, of themselves, operate an ordi- 
nary telegraphic system. It is here that 
Marconi utilizes the coherer as the final 
essential in the invention. 

The coherer is a little tube of glass, about 
two inches long and as large as a small lead 
pencil in diameter. It is plugged at each 
end with silver, the plugs nearly meeting 




MARCONI'S ASSISTANTS PREPARrNTG TO RAISE THE KITE WHICH SUPPORTED THE 
RECEIVING WIRE. 

the left, indicated by an X.) 



(Marconi approaching fron 

a tall pole. By shutting off and turning 
on this peculiar current the waves are so 
divided as to represent dots and dashes, and 
spell out letters in the ordinary Morse al- 
phabet of telegraphy. The waves which 
come from the transmitter are receired on 
a suspended wire, elevated either by a mast, 
a kite, or a balloon. This wire is exactly 
similar to the one used in the transmitter, 



within the tube. The plugs are separated 
by a small quantity of nickel and silver 
filings, finely powdered. Under ordinary 
circumstances the filings are jumbled to- 
gether like the particles of a sand lieap, 
and in that state they form a poor con- 
ductor. The moment, however, that they 
receive an electrical wave they cling to- 
gether tightly as a solid conducting bridge, 



SCIEXCE. IXTEXTIOX AXD DISCOVERY 



41 



that carries a current from a local battery 
to a receiving telephone or a telegraphic 
sounder of common pattern. If it is con- 
nected at one end with the suspended wire, 
and at the other end with the ILorse instru- 
ment, there is a dot or a dash printed, ac- 
cording to the signal that has been sent by 
the transmitter, miles away. Then a little 
tapper, actuated by the same current, 
strikes against the coherer, and the particles 
of metal are jarred apart, or decohered, be- 
coming instantly a poor conductor, and thus 
stopping the strong current from the home 
battery. Another wave comes through 
space, down the suspended wire, into the 
coherer, there drawing the particles again 
together, and another dot or dash is printed. 
All these processes are continued rapidly 
until a complete message is picked out on 
the tape. 

In these early experiments Marconi be- 
lieved that great distances could not be , 
obtained without very high masts and long * 
suspended wires, the greater the distance 
the taller the mast, on the theory that the 
waves were hindered by the curvature of 
the earth. But his later theory, substan- 
tiated by his experiments in ^STewfoundland, 
is that the waves follow around the earth, 
conforming to its curve, and it is not neces- 
sary, therefore, to erect masts to a great 
height. In the experiments of December, 
1001, the transmitting station in England 
was fitted with twenty masts 210 feet high, 
each with its suspended wire, though not all 
of them were used. A current of electricity 
sufficient to operate 300 incandescent lamps 
was used. 

Marconi landed at St. Johns, ISTewfound- 
land, December 6, 1901, ostensibly to com- 
municate with the Cunard liners, traversing 
the North Atlantic Ocean, just along the 




CABOT MEMORIAL TOWER. 

Loaned by Newfoundlancl Government for Marconi's 

experiments. 

Grand Banks. The dangers of the l^Tew- 
foundland coast in the vicinity of Cape 
Race are well known to mariners, and it 
was supposed that his motive was to safe- 
guard that coastline so that ships might be 
located when well at sea and kept in touch 
with as they approached there, thus reduc- 
ing to a minimum the dangers of disasters. 
The Cunard vessels, like nearly all other 
Atlantic liners, are fitted with his ap- 
paratus. 

Marconi brought with him an apparatus 
for the receiving of messages, but not for 
the sending of them, so no specially im- 
portant experiments were expected by those 
not in his confidence. For elevating his 
long receiving wire he brought a balloon 
and some kites, which, with his other ap- 
paratus, he removed to Signal Hill to 
begin work. The iSTewfoundland Govern- 
ment placed at his disposal the Cabot Me- 



42 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



morial Tower, recently erected on Signal 
Hill, where his appliances were imme- 
diately stored. 

On Wednesday, December 11, he sent up 
his balloon, only to see it break away and 
sail off toward Labrador. The rest of his 
experiments were performed with wires 
hanging from kites, these kites being about 
nine feet square, and possessing a consid- 
erable lifting power. They were built of 
bamboo and silk, after the Baden-Poweli 
model. By the time he had lost his four- 
teen-foot hydrogen balloon and one of the 
kites the wind died down sufficiently to 
permit a test, even though not under the 
most favorable conditions. Thursday, the 
12th, was a blustery day, and it required 
the combined strength of the inventor and 
his assistants to hold the kite at the ele- 
vation of 400 feet, which was desired. 

Before leaving England Marconi had 
given instructions to his assistants there for 
the transmission of a certain signal at a 
fixed time each day, beginning as soon as 
they received word that everything in St. 
John's was ready. The transmitting station 
was at Poldhu, Cornwall, the southwestern 
tip of England. Marconi cabled his assist- 
ants when to begin sending signals, and on 
that bleak winter's day, on the barren sum- 
mit of Signal Hill, were received the dis- 
tinct signals across the 1,800 miles of the 
great Atlantic. Again the next day the 
signals were repeated, and the experiment 
was an assured success. The storminess of 
the day and the consequent impossibility of 
maintaining the kite at a fixed elevation 
were handicaps difficult to overcome with 
the incomplete apparatus at hand. ISTever- 
theless, there was no room for doubt that 
a signal had been actually transmitted from 
England to America without wires. 



The reception which this wonderful 
achievement won, when after two days of 
self-restraint Marconi announced the fact, 
was memorable. The world wondered and 
awaited details. Edison accepted the fact 
as soon as Marconi issued a signed state- 
ment. The governor of ISTewfoundland 
reported the achievement at once to King 
Edward, and, most significant of all, the 
Atlantic Cable Company, which possessed 
a special charter and exclusive rights for 
telegraphic service in ISTewfoundland, de- 
manded the cessation of exjieriments as an 
infringement upon its rights, a demand to 
which Marconi and the ISTewfoundland Gov- 
ernment had to bow. After that the in- 
ventor made two or three journeys back 
and forth across the Atlantic to direct ex- 
periments and commercial negotiations, 
and a station for his transatlantic service 
was decided upon, to be located near 
Sydney, Cape Breton Island, ISTova Scotia. 
JSTewfoundland thus lost for a time the 
distinction of being the scene of Marconi's 
further experiments. In addition to this 
receiving station there is a large one at 
Cape Cod, on the Massachusetts coast, and 
these two, with the Lizard station in Corn- 
wall, will complete a triangular service con- 
veniently located for commercial use in the 
transatlantic system. 

Shortly after the transmission of these 
first signals from Cornwall to Newfound- 
land came the news of the transmission of 
entire messages for a distance of 1,551 
miles. Marconi was crossing the Atlantic 
on the steamship Philadelphia, and he ex- 
changed messages with his assistants on 
land for that distance. The officers of the 
vessel signed and certified the messages as 
they were received, and the last remnant 
of incredulity was banished. The messages 



S^TEXCE, TNTENTTON AND DISCOVERY 



43 



were clearly registered on the tape, and 
inasmuch as the receiver of the Philadel- 
phia was not specially constructed for long 
distance work the achievement was consid- 
ered all the greater. 

Marconi's faith in his invention is bound- 
less. He modestly but firmly maintains 
that what he has done is nothing with what 
he hopes to accomplish in the future. When 
the world throbbed wdth the surprise of his 
exploit, and the cables were loaded with 
congratulatory messages, he manifested no 
elation, but calmly declared that he never 
doubted his ability to employ the magnetic 
waves across the Atlantic. ''When I am 
able," said he, "to send a message from 
Cornwall to ISTew Zealand across the Isth- 
mus of Panama, the only land that inter- 
venes, then I shall count that I have 
accomplished something. The force I shall 



generate shall be sufficient to send the sig- 
nals the whole way. And there is an even 
more difficult proposition which I intend to 
tackle, more difficult because it involves 
transmission over land, with all the diver- 
sities of the different countries. I shall 
not rest until I have inaugurated wireless 
telegraphy between London and Calcutta, 
overland." 

The imagination is overwhelmed in the 
effort to look forward to the possibilities of 
a perfected wireless telegraphy system. The 
$400,000,000 invested in cable systems in 
various parts of the world would in large 
measure be lost. The cost of messages would 
be much reduced by this system. An At- 
lantic cable costs between $3,000,000 and 
$4,000,000, while wireless telegraphy sta- 
tions can be built and equipped on both 
sides of the Atlantic for less than $150,- 




SIGNAL HILL, ST. JOHN'S HARBOR, NEWFOUNDLAND. 
Showing the Cabot Memorial Tower from which Marconi conducted his "experiments. 



44 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



000, with a very small charge for mainte- 
nance. With all vessels and lighthouses 
equipped with apparatus, it should be pos- 
sible to avert collisions at sea and wrecks 
on shore. In times of warfare generals 
may signal over the heads of the enemy 
where they could not possibly string tele- 
graph wires or send couriers. The steam- 
ships in midocean would be in touch with 
the news of the day. It is little wonder 
that Lloyds, the chief marine exchange of 
the world, has contracted for fourteen 
years' use of the Marconi patents. 

A general impression prevails that wire- 
less telegraphy is still largely in the uncer- 
tain experimental stage, but as a matter of 
fact it is actually in wide commercial use. 
Most of the ships of the great navies of 
Europe, and all the important ocean liners, 
are now fitted with the wireless instru- 
ments. It is being used on many light 
ships, and the New York Herald receives 
daily reports from vessels at sea, commu- 
nicating from a ship station off Nantucket. 
Though it is not generally known, messages 
are now received in England at the rate of 
12^- cents a word for transmission to ves- 
sels that have already sailed from port. 

The one remaining element of doubt 
Avhich has been suggested as to the prac- 
tical uses of a world-wide system is dis- 
missed by Marconi with the assurance that 
he already has proved that he can overcome 
it. This is the question of whether or not 
messages can be clandestinely read by those 
for whom they are intended; in other 
words, if privacy can be assured by a system 
in which the signals radiate with equal 
force in every direction from the point of 



transmission. Marconi has found that he 
can so harmonize the transmitters and re- 
ceivers or "tune" them, so to speak, so that 
they will respond to their own mates but 
not to others. By this system all the ships 
of a fleet can be provided with instruments 
tuned alike, so that they may communicate 
freely with each other without danger of 
the messages being read by the enemy. 
Great telegraph companies would have their 
instruments tuned to receive their own 
messages and no others. In one of Marconi's 
English experiments he had two receivers 
connected with the same wire, and tuned 
to different transmitters. Two messages 
were sent, one in English and one in 
French. Both were received at the same 
time, on the same wire, but one receiver 
rolled off its message in English, the other 
in French, without the least interruption. 

With the progress of science as rapid as 
it is in these years at the beginning of the 
century one should be prepared for any- 
thing, however startling. Impossibility is 
a word to be avoided. Already wireless 
telephone systems are contemplated as a 
natural development to follow the wireless 
telegraph, and even these are hardly more 
wonderful than the phonograph with its 
manifold developments, the sending of 
pictures by telegraph, the moving pictiire 
machine under its various names, and a host 
of other scientific marvels which might be 
mentioned. Incredulity is no longer a safe 
frame of mind, and after the achievements 
of Marconi still less will we feel inclined to 
disbelieve any statement of invention or 
discovery. 



SCIEXCE, IXYEXTIOX AND DISCOVERY 



45 




WIRELESS STATION, :;_ i a;::.l: .1; cax,. 

While the limit of accurate transmission 
of messages is generally fixed at 250 miles, 
there have been occasions on which a dis- 
tance of 1,000 miles or more has been cov- 
ered. Operators of the wireless system ex- 
plain this on the ground of atmospheric 
conditions. "When these conditions are fa- 
vorable messages may be transmitted for al- 
most any distance; when the atmospheric 
conditions are unfavorable 250 miles is 
about the limit within which satisfactory 
service may be had. 

So practical and valuable has the wire- 
less system become that the United States 
government has provided that beginning 
July 1st, 1911, all ocean-going vessels carry- 
ing 50 or more passengers, must be 
equipped with wireless apparatus and carry 
competent operators. The system is now 
in general use on the great lakes. 



AUTOMATIC TELEPHONES. 

Much more wonderful, from a mechanicjil 
standpoint at least, is the automatic teL^- 
phone system, which eliminates the services 
of the "hello" girl in making connections 
between the phones of subscribers. Speed 
and certainty in service, and absolute se- 
crecy in communication, are the advan- 
tages claimed for this system in addition 
to a great saving in tlie expense of opera- 
tion. 

Each phone is fitted at the base with an 
immovable disk, on which are raised nu- 
merals from 1 to 0. Over this disk is a 
movable metal circle numbered and perfor- 
ated so that when the holes come exactly 
over a number on the lower disk it may be 
readily seen. Suppose a subscriber wishes 
to call phone No. 739. He slides the mov- 
able circle around so that the perforation 
numbered "7" comes exactly over the same 
numeral on the stationary disk. Next he 
moves the circle so the "3's" match, and 
then repeats the operation with the "9's." 
This makes a connection automatically at 
the central exchange and the subscriber is 
at once placed in communication with the 
number wanted. If the number should be 
busy when called an automatic signal an- 
nounces the fact. Replacing the receiver 
on the hook cuts off the connection auto- 
matically when either subscriber "hangs 
up." 

These phones have been in use success- 
fully for a number of years and the service 
is being extended. Several thousands are 
now being operated in Chicago. Among 
the other advantages claimed for the auto- 
matic service is that of absolute certainty 
in getting the number wanted. If it is not 
obtained at the first effort it is because the 
phone desired is busy, and not because some 
operator has made a wrong connection. 



THE WORLD'S GREATEST INDUSTRY 

THE RAILWAY 



The combined length of the railways of 
the United States amounts to nearly 200,- 
000 miles, and of the whole world to ap- 
proximately 500,000 miles. The increase 
is at the rate of about 10,000 miles a year 
the world over. If the actual cost of con- 
struction and equipment, the production of 
the materials out of which the lines are 
built, the employees engaged in railway. 



operation, and the interests which depend 
for their prosperity on the railway are con- 
sidered, it may be safely said that the rail- 
way is the greatest industrial factor in the 
world today. 

The most able financial organizations, 
the most skillful executives, and the most 
ingenious inventors, are devoting their at- 
tention to the construction, operation and 




Copyright, F. A. Miller, Chicago. 

SPECIAL TRAIN H. R. H. PRINCE HENRY OF PRUSSIA IN CHICACfW MILWAUKEE & ST. PAXJl. 
RA.ILWAY STATION AT MILWAUKEE, MARCH 4, 1902. 
(Photo taken at 9 p. m. by the light of the searchliglit headlights. This is the latest device for 
averting collisions, as the piercing rays can be seen for many miles along the track and flashing against 
the sky.) ^„ 

47 



48 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 






Carrying night lanterns to the top 
o£ a railway signal post. 



perfection o f 
railway s y s- 
tems. Improve- 
m e n t in the 
modern r a i 1- 
ways over those 
of only a few 
years ago is 
cons picuous. 
Old roads are 
reconstructing 
their lines and 
new ones build 
with the ut- 
most care to as- 
sure the per- 
manency of 
their tracks, 
the economy of 
their adminis- 
tration and the 
comfort of 
their travelers. Heavy steel rails have 
supplanted the light ones of iron; rock 
ballast is used where earth formerly suf- 
ficed ; steel bridges span streams and the 
old Avoodem culverts are burned at the 
roadside; curves are straightened, grades 
are reduced, tunnels penetrate the moun- 
tains where trains formerly surmounted 
the summit by slow climbing. All this 
contributes to the safety, ease and speed 
of the journey, but it likewise reduces 
the cost of maintenance and operation, 
BO that the railway companies find di- 
rect as well as indirect profit from their 
increasing expenditures. The elevation of 
tracks through cities, thus eliminating 
grade crossings, and the perfection of vari- 
ous block signals and safety switch systems, 
help to give additional safety to traffic and 
make high speed possible. 




Tr vriv T\ VLKER 



Rails, ties, switches and signals must be watched 
carefully to guard against accidents, and such patro'' 
duty is one of the most important functions in railway 
service. 



Train equipment has improved with the 
increase in travel, and today the railway 
journey may offer comforts and luxuries at 
a moderate price, which are hardly to be 
found in any but the homes of the wealth- 
iest. A modern transcontinental train is in 
fact a luxurious home, with all the details 



I 

I 



t 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



49 



of a splendid clubhouse or hotel available, 
while one races across plains and moun- 
tains at high speed. Such trains, equipped 
with palace sleeping cars, dining cars, 
drawing room and observation cars, a 
library, barber shop, cafe, card room, 
music room, electric lights, and vestibules 
excluding the noise and dust as one passes 
from one car to another, with waiters, 
porters and a lady's maid ready to serve the 
passengers with everything demanded, add 
enticement to the prospect of a journey, 
where i^prnierly the destination itself was 
the only reward. 

It is not alone in the United States that 
railway construction is advancing rapidly 
and luxurious facilities for travel are pro- 
vided. All over the world the same spirit 
of energy rules and the effort to connect 
remote lands by these arteries of commerce 
never ceases. On our own continent, our 
neighbors to the north and the south are 
active. One transcontinental line crosses 
Canada, a second is advancing rapidly, and 





eOLID COMFORT IN THE UBRART CAR. 



ALL. ABOARD! 

a railway to Hudson's Bay promises com- 
pletion within a few years. The Mexican 
Eepublic has seen the construction of 
nearly 10,000 miles of railway within the 
last few years, and the 
country is traversed in 
every direction by lines 
which are extending 
rapidly. 

Surveys have been 
completed for an inter- 
continental railway, to 
connect North and 
South America by way 
of the Isthmus of Pan- 
ama. In South Amer- 
ica the Andes Eange 
has been a difficult ob- 
stacle for transconti- 
nental lines to over- 
come, but already the 
moimtaiiis have been 



50 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



penetrated from the Pacific coast by sev- 
eral lines, and a railway from ocean to 
ocean is a thing of the near future. The 
heart of the continent is penetrated by nu- 
merous lines in Argentine and Brazil, lines 
which afford an outlet for the immense pro- 
duction of the interior, and novel journeys 
for the inquiring traveler. 



cept for its course across Northern Man- 
churia, in order to obtain a shorter route 
to the sea, the entire line is within the 
dominions of Russia, and Manchuria itself 
is so entirely dominated by Eussian author- 
ity as to be virtually at the disposal of the 
railway. 

On the Pacific the Siberian Railway and 




(Showing 

In Asia the whole political and military 
situation has been affected by the construc- 
tion of the Trans-Siberian railway, built 
by the Russian Government. Extending 
all the way from the European provinces of 
the empire as it does, across the whole of 
Asia, to a terminus on the Pacific Ocean, 
it provides a speedy route by which armies 
may be shifted to any scene of threatened 
difficulty at the will of the Emperor. Ex- 



OPERATOR IN THE SIGNAL TOWER, 
echanitim by which switches and signals are controlled.) 



this connecting line, the Chinese Eastern 
Railway, have one terminus at Vladivostok 
and another at Port Arthur. The former 
is a Russian city, with an impregnable har- 
bor on the coast north of Korea. Port 
Arthur was acquired by negotiations with 
the. Chinese, and situated as it is at the 
gateway by which Peking must be ap- 
proached, it becomes a sentinel port whence 
the Russians can watch their own inter- 



SCIEXCE, IXYEXTIOX AXD DISCOVERY 



51 



ests. The entire length of this wonderful 
railway from the Ural Mountains to the 
Pacific, is nearly double that of an Amer- 
ican transcontinental railway, or more 
than 6,000 miles, and it was constructed 
at a total cost, including all incidental ex- 
penses, of nearly $250,000,000. From a 
European port on the Atlantic, Havre for 
instance, it is, therefore, possible to go by 
continuous connecting lines of railway a 
distance of nearly 10,- 
000 miles right across 
two continents, or al- 
most half way around 
the world. The Siberian 
line was not begun un- 
til 1S91, and the com- 
pletion of it in eleven 
years across the steppes 
of Siberia, the great 
rivers which flow 
through Asia into the 
Arctic Ocean, the moun- 
tain ranges and the wil- 
derness, is the most 
noteworthy achievement 
in the history of rail- 
way construction. 

Transcontinental trains on the Siberian 
Eailway are equipped as our own railways 
are in America, with sleeping cars and din- 
ing cars of Eussian patterns. In addition 
they have bathrooms, a gymnasium and a 
church car, which travels with the train 
at times, where priests hold services for 
the benefit of the faithful while they are 
speeding through the heart of Asia. 

Russia has yet another railway, extend- 
ing eastward into Asia from the Caspian 
Sea, about 1,000 miles south of the Sibe- 
rian railway and roughly parallel with it. 
It has been completed for a distance of 



about 1,500 miles, and thus reaches nearly 
to the western boundary of the Chinese 
Empire. At its terminus, this line is less 
than 500 miles from the northern terminus 
of the British railways in India, and if this 
gap could be traversed there would be con- 
tinuous rail communication between West- 
ern Europe and Calcutta. The great moun- 
tain range called the Pamirs intervenes 
here, however, and the connection will have 




IN THE DINING CAR. 

to be made some day by an easier route, 
but little longer, across Afghanistan. It 
is the purpose of Eussia to connect this 
railway with the Siberian line by a north- 
eastern extension, and perhaps, some day 
also, to build directly across the Chinese 
Empire to the Pacific Ocean at Shanghai. 
Africa is not falling behind in the mat- 
ter of railway construction. Already the 
line of the Cape to Cairo Eailway is suffi- 
ciently advanced to make a striking im- 
pression when one studies the map. From 
Cape Town northward it has been com- 
pleted nearly to the Zambezi River, and 



52 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



from Cairo it extends up tlie Nile to Khar- 
tum, whence construction is steadily ad- 
vancing. The gap is still a long one, but 
the surveys are made, capitalists are inter- 
ested, and it promises to be not many years 
before the traveler can find a through train 
of palace cars by which he may travel the 
length of the Dark Continent from the 
Cape of Good Hope to the Mediterranean. 
This is a distinctly English enterprise, and 
except for the comparatively short crossing 
of German East Africa, the line traverses 
British territory all the way until it 
reaches the practically British province of 
Egypt. In "Western Africa, the Erench 
never halt in their explorations of the 
Sudan, into which they are steadily push- 



ing their railways southward from Algeria. 
Before many years Timbuctoo will be a 
way station between Algiers and Dahomey, 
and we may visit the oases of Sahara in 
palace cars. 

Australia, with its immense expanse of 
interior desert, is not yet traversed or en- 
circled by a railway line. The capitals of 
the more populous stat»3s of the new Com- 
monwealth, from Adelaide to Brisbane, are 
connected by rail, and many short lines ex- 
tend from ports around tbe coast toward 
the interior of the continent. From Ade- 
laide a telegraph line extends northward 
across tbe continent to Port Darwin, where 
it connects with the submarine cables to 
Asia and Europe. A railway line has been 




Railway construction in the mountains. 



II 



54 



SCIENCE, INYEXTWN AND DISCOVERY 



built from Adelaide northward as far as 
Oodnadatta, 800 miles into the desert, but 
a train service operated once every three 
-weeks each way has not been sufficiently 
profitable to encourage the extension of the 
line. Erom this desert to Brisbane in the 
far northeast, there is consequently continu- 
ous rail connection for some 3,000 miles. 
What the future may bring to this great 
undeveloped land of possibilities hardly 
realized can not be predicted, but it is cer- 
tain that Australian energy will not fail to 
multiply railway lines as fast as industry 
would be profited thereby. The three north- 
ern continents are crossed by railway lines. 
The three of the south are yet to be trav- 
ersed. 




INTERIOR OF A 



RAILWAY SNOWSHED 
MOUNTAINS, 




TYPICAL RUSSIAN LOCOMOTIVE IN URAL MOUNTAINS. 



SCIEXCE, IXVEXTIOX AXD DISCOTEBY 



55 



Home signals sboTtiugr 




Home signals shovriDg 
"Clear" or "Proceed." 




^^^ ,^^ Distant signals shonlngr 
I^^^V ^^1 "Clear" or "Proceed.' 






Distant signals showlns: 
"Proceed" with caation to 
next signal. 



Signals showing two 
blocks in advance are 
"Clear." 



Home and distant signals 
showing "Stop." 



Home signal showing 
"Clear" or "Proceed" but 
distant signal, shoning 
second block in advance 
occupied and to be ap- 
proached with caution. 



ELECTEIC BLOCK SIGNALS. 

It is the aim of eveiy railway operator 
to reduce, or abolish, entirely, the risk of 
accidents, especially those caused by train 
collisions. One of the latest defaces intro- 
duced for this purpose is an electric block 
signal system by which it is made prac- 
tically impossible for a train to leave a sta- 
tion unless the track ahead of it is clear, 
provided, of course, that the engineer obeys 
orders. "Popular Electricity" describes 
the new system as follows: 

Fig. 1 shows diagrammatically, a tj*pical 
layout and wiring between block stations. 
(A), (B) and (C) represent the three block 
stations on a single track road, and all 
trains approaching or entering the blocks 
(AB) and (BC* are governed by the train 
order signals in front of each of the sta- 
tions. 

Supposing a train wishes to move from 
(A) to (B) ; the operator at (A) must ask 
the operator at (B), by means of the bell 
code, to unlock his machine so that he (A) 
can turn his signal to "proceed" position. 

No train being in the block and the op- 
posing signal at (B) being at "stop," the 
operator at (B) so manipulates his imlock- 
ing key as to close an electric circuit from 
a battery at (B) through the interlocking 
key, held in its proper position, and the 
coils of an electromagnet at (A). This 
action releases a hand lock, which is moved 
to unlock the signal crank, allowing the 
operator at (A) to clear his signal. After 
the train has entered the block and has 
been so reported, the signalman at (A) 
must return his signal to the danger posi- 
tion. In doing so the lock on the operating 
crank is forced home, thereby compelling 
the operator to obtain another release in 
order to again clear the signal. 

The positions of the various signals as 
interpreting the condition of the track, and 



56 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



the automatic orders given by 
them to the engineers, are shown 
in Fig. 2. On the left-hand end 
of the movabh} cross arms are 
red and green lights so the posi- 
tion of the cross arms may be 
seen at night just as readily as 
in the day time. 

For allowing the operators to 
communicate with each other, a 
bell code is generally installed 
between block stations, opera- 
tors conveying information by 
pressing a push button a pre- 
scribed number of times, which 
rings an electric bell a like number of 
times. This is a very simple circuit, and 
generally installed independent of the sta- 
tion instrument circuits. 

*M *J1 'JI 
CHICAGO & NORTHWESTERN DEPOT. 

One of the monster new railway stations 
of the world is that erected in Chicago in 
1910, by the Chicago & Northwestern Rail- 
way Co. It stands facing Madison street, 
between Canal and Clinton, has a frontage 




METHOD OF WEIRING BETWEEN BLOCK STATIONS. 



of one entire city block, and is four blocks 
in depth (13 acres in all), running from 
]\Iadison to Kinzie streets, the intervening 
streets being crossed by viaducts. The 
cost of the structure is placed by the rail- 
way officials at $20,000,000. It has a ca- 
pacity of 1500 trains a day. All trains 
enter and leave the terminal on elevated 
tracks. Every conceivable comfort and 
convenience to meet the Avants of 250,000 
people daily has been provided, including 
restaurants, stores, bath-rooms, rest-rooms. 




FIRST ALL-STEEL, CAR TRAIN IN OPERATION. 
The newest invention in railroading— will not break to pieces and cannot take fire. 



SCIEXCE, IXYEXTION AND DISCOVERY 



57 



and similar features in addition to 
those ordinarily found in modern rail- 
way depots. 

In 1906 the Pennsylvania railroad 
eastern terminus was at Jersey City. 
In that year the trains of this com- 
pany landed 140,000,000 people in 
Jersey City, virtually all of whom 
were carried across the Hudson river 
by ferry boats to New York. In Sep- 
tember, 1910, the company opened a 
mammoth station located in the central 
part of New York City, and began to 
move its trains through tunnels con- 
structed under the Hudson river, Man- 
hattan island, and the East river. By 
the use of this tunnel system pas- 
sengers, instead of being ferried across the 
Hudson river, are landed in the New York 
station, while those bound for points 
on Long Island may continue on through 
the tunnel under the East river. The 
new station building is 740 feet long, 




TWO OF THE NEW JERSEY ENTRANCES TO PENN- 
SYLVANIA TUNNEL UNDER HUDSON RIVER. 



430 feet wide, and of an average height 
of 69 feet, the maximum being 153 feet. 
The tunnel system, which is 5.3 miles in 
length, consists of four separate bores or 
tubes through which the trains pass. This 
monster work, begun in 1903, was all com- 




^ " \ — ' 




MONSTER NEW STATION OF PENNSYLVANIA RAILWAY IN NEW YORK. 
This picture shows only one-third of length of structure. 



58 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



pleted and in use on September 8th, 1910. 
No official figures as to the cost of the tun- 
nels and station are obtainable, but the 
outlay represents an investment of many 
millions of dollars. 

J^ )^ 5^ 
TREE CUTTING BY ELECTRICITY. 

Hugo Gantke, a German manufacturer, 
has presented a new method of felling trees 
which promises to supersede the old meth- 
ods of chopping and sawing. As described 
in "Popular Electricity" Gantke uses a fine 
steel wire which is wrapped partly around 
the stem and is pulled back and forth by 
cables attached to an electric motor- 
driven drum. The friction of the wire 
which is moved to and fro 1,500 times 
per minute, heats it red hot so that it 
literally burns its way through the 
trunk in half the time it would take 
two men to saw down the tree. In 
doing so, the heat carbonizes the sev- 
ered ends, leaving them protected 
against easy rotting in case they are 
left on the ground for some time. If 
the tree is to fall in a certain direction, 
this can be insured by notching the 
trunk with an axe. However, time is 
usually saved by simply placing the 
motor at a safe distance (100 to 150 
feet) and letting the tree fall wherever 
it will. A new steel wire is used for 
each cut, the cost in Germany ranging 
from one-fifth to one-half cent each, ac- 
cording to the length and nature of 
the wood, which is less than the cost 
of filing and setting saws or of sharp- 
ening axes for the same work. Be- 
sides, the cutting can be done flush 
with the soil, or as much below ground 



as the root structure will permit, thereby 
saving the work of grubbing in many 
cases. 

The motor equipment is mounted on a 
two wheeled cart and as it weighs only 
570 pounds, it can easily be managed by 
one man even for trees measuring as much 
as ten feet in diameter. 

"Where no source of electric current is 
available close to the forest, it can be sup- 
plied by a portable gasolene and dynamo 
outfit from which the current is led to the 
sawing motor by a flexible cable. 




MOTOR FOR FELLING TREES BY HLECTRICITY. 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



59 



GREAT RAILWAY CONSOLIDATIONS 




ACROSS THE CONTINENT. 

One of tlie most notewortliy conditions 
of the present day is the tendency toward 
enormous consolidations of American rail- 
way lines in the control of a few individ- 
uals. Within the limits of the United 
States we have approximately 200,000 
miles of railroads, and practically half that 
stupendous property is in the possession of 
five little groups of men, who direct it from 
their offices in Xew York. 

It has taken less than seventy-five years 
for the railway systems of the United 
States to grow from that first inadequate 
little wooden track with its lonesome loco- 
motive of 1829 to this mileage which is 
sufficient to make a single track extending 
eight times around the world. The in- 
crease of railway mileage in the United 
States at this time is nearly twelve miles 
a day. For every five miles of railway in 
the country there are twenty-five men at 
work, one locomotive, and eight cars. The 
numi)er of railway employees increases at 
the rate of 240 new men every day. These 
American railways carry more freight than 
all the ships of all the oceans of the world, 
added to one-half the traffic of the Euro- 



pean railways. One-fifteenth of all the 
labor in the United States derives its sup- 
port directly or indirectly out of the rail- 
way industries. When we add to these facts 
the recollection that the success of almost 
every great American industry depends 
upon the railways in some way or other, 
whether it be manufacturing, commerce, or 
farming, it becomes apparent what vast 
importance railway problems have to all of 
us and to the prosperity of the country at 
large. 

There is nothing new about the tendency 
toward consolidation of railway lines, ex- 
cept the rapidity and the magnitude of the 
recent achievements in that line. From 
the day when railways first began to be 
constructed smaller lines have been com- 
bined to establish greater ones, with the 
invariable result of improved service, and, 
at the same time, opposition to the combi- 
nation. Half a century ago passengers had 
to change eight times between Albany and 
JSTew York, and as many more between Al- 
bany and Buffalo, even though there were 
railways connecting through the entire dis- 
tances. And yet the consolidation of these 
little lines, which now seem almost ridicu- 
lous to us, met with distinct opposition, 
both popular and legislative, when the first 
moves were made, just as is the case now 
in regard to the greater consolidations of 
today. 

It seems fair to say that there is no es- 
sential evil in consolidation of railway 
systems as a principle. Such consolida- 
tions manifestly make for economy of ad- 
ministration and for convenience and 
harmony of service in the connecting lines 



60 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



These things and the reduced rates which 
should naturally follow are all to the public 
benefit. As a matter of fact, except for 
short periods and in specific instances, there 
has never been but little real competition 
between railway systems. They might com- 
pete in quality of service, but clandestine 
pools have usually protected them from the 
cost of a fight among themselves. 

The real question, therefore, that comes 
from Americans in connection with the rail- 
way consolidation is whether the benefits of 
such union are enjoyed by the public, or 
are to be retained entirely as the sources 
of increasing wealth 
and power in the hands 
of the controlling syn- 
dicates. In the latter 
case it would seem as if 
the syndicate managers 





were preparing for the inevitable result of 
public ownership. In the former case the 
public may rest as contented with the pres- 
ent relations as it has been in the past. 

Five great syndicate interests, dominated 
in each case by one or two conspicuous 
men, control the five most important groups 
of railways in the United States. In addi- 
tion to these, there are certain important 
independent lines, still outside of syndicate 
control, which are continually the subject 
of speculative rumor as to how or when they 
shall be absorbed. 

The most conspicuous of these groups, 
headed by the men who 
are today the most con- 
spicuous, is the Morgan- 
Hill system, headed by 
J. Pierpont Morgan, 
the N'ew York banker. 



1. -Ofilo," • DouUe DaJ l«3)-A Triple Body Cir on li. Camiai * / 
Body Cu, ieigDti by RSt., doigiial by Mr. Greet. Dnwn b' 

t.ImUrloeBaUmotc bona ud Ibe "Jotm BulL" 



NMblBHHbl^li-llrllriaNHH 








PICTORIAL HISTORY OP CAR BUILDING. 



SCIENCE, INVEXTIOX AXD DISCOVERY 



61 



and James J. Hill of St. Paul, the 

northwcsteru railway magnate. The mile- 
age which this combination controls meas- 
ures a total of 37,500 miles, including 
two transcontinental lines from St. Paul to 
the Pacific coast, by the famous ''merger" 
that brought on the attack made by the gov- 
ernors of the northwestern states and by the 
president of the United States in the federal 
courts to determine the validity of such 



20,000 miles, including all of the Xew 
York Central lines, the Lake Shore and 
Michigan Southern, the Michigan Central, 
the Chicago and Northwestern, and the Big 
Four, with a host of tributaries, thus in- 
cluding three distinct lines between New 
York and Chicago. 

The Pennsylvania system, with mileage 
approaching 15,000, now includes the Bal- 
timore and Ohio, in addition to all of the 




RAPID TRANSIT IN A GREAT CITY, 
The Manhattan Elevated Railway in Upper New York. Height above ground nearly 100 feet 



union. The roads included in this system 
are the Northern Pacific, the Great North- 
ern, the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy, 
the Erie, the Lehigh Valley, the Philadel- 
phia and Reading, the Hocking Valley, the 
Southern Railway, and the Mobile and 
Ohio. 

None of the other groups approaches this 
one in mileage, although in importance, 
wealth and profits they may not fall behind. 
The Vanderbilt system has a total of some 



lines formerly identified with the Pennsyl- 
vania, including the Fort Wayne, the Van- 
dalia, and the Panhandle. 

The Gould-Rockefeller system, in which 
the Sage interests arc also involved, in- 
cludes the Missouri Pacific, the Wabash, 
the Iron Mountain, the Texas and Pacific, 
the Missouri, Kansas and Texas, and the 
Denver and Rio Grande, with a total mile- 
age of nearly 17,000. 

The Harriman-Kuhn-Loeb system, with 



62 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



a mileage of 22,000, includes the Union 
Pacific, the Southern Pacific, the Oregon 
Short Line, the Chicago and Alton, the Illi- 
nois Central, and the Kansas City South- 
ern. In addition to these syndicate systems 
of railways there still remain, as has been 
said, a number of independent systems with 
a total mileage of some 37,000, of which 
the Santa Fe, the Eock Island and the 
Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul are the 
most important. It is more than possible 
that several of these, particularly those of 
the southeastern states, will find a final 
refuge in the Morgan-Hill system or in 
some other syndicate organized for the pur- 
pose. 

Says a recent student of this picturesque 
situation: "A strip of land hundreds of 
miles wide, beginning at the Washington 
ports in the northwest and sweeping east 
to the lakes, is practically an industrial fief 
of Mr. Hill and Mr. Morgan. In Mr. Har- 
riman's hands, in some measure, is the pros- 
perity of California and the southwestern 
states, as well as of a broad strip up the 
Mississippi Valley, a fertile band through 
the prairie states, and all the habitable land 
reaching west from the Eockies to the coast. 
The central Atlantic states live to the 
rhythm of the New York Central and the 
Pennsylvania Eailroad. It is true that one 



can go from Boston to San Francisco, from 
the Gulf to St. Paul, and travel not a mile 
on the roads of the railroad giants, but 
only through a very narrow path and for the 
most part within view of competing syndi- 
cate lines on either side. When it is re- 
membered, furthermore, that Morgan men 
are directors in Vanderbilt roads, Hill men 
in Pennsylvania roads, Gould men in Har- 
riman roads, and that every other possible 
interweaving of comonon control exists 
throughout the great groups, the lines of 
demarkation melt away." 

And yet, within twenty years, the aver- 
age rate of freight has decreased from a 
cent and a quarter a ton for each mile to a 
little over seven mills, and the tonnage has 
quadrupled. The passenger rate has like- 
wise gone down, and passenger traffic is 
growing 15,000,000 a year. With all these 
picturesque conditions in effect the situa- 
tion becomes a puzzling one, and it will be 
of the highest interest to watch the course 
of events for the next few years. Whether 
or not we are to return to a system of indi- 
vidual competitive roads, whether railways 
will be a private monopoly or a government 
monopoly, can only be known after the 
period of adjustment has passed and the 
public has taken its own hand in the settle- 
ment of the proposition. 



BUILDING OF THE GREAT PANAMA 

CANAL 



As a preliminary to the construction of 
the Panama canal, connecting the waters 
of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, the 
United States government in 1902 bought 
for $40,000,000 the rights of the French 
company which held a franchise for the 
work, but which had virtually abandoned 
operations. In 1904 it acquired from the 
Panama republic control over a strip of 
country, reaching from Colon on the At- 



lantic coast, to Panama, on the Pacific, and 
averaging about 10 miles in width. This 
s*rip, which cost the United States $10,- 
000,000, is known as the Canal Zone. With- 
in its limits the Americans are in control, 
administering the laws and exercising un- 
disputed police powers. 

When completed the canal will be about 
50 miles in length, counting the deep water 
entrances at each end. The actual length 




MAMMOTH CUT AT CULEBRA. GREATEST EXCAVATION ON PANAMA CANAI* 



66 



TEE GREAT PANAMA CANAL 



working for the Commission, 4,646 were 
on the gold pay roll, which comprises 
those paid in the United States currency, 
and 25,044 men on the silver pay roll, 
which comprises those paid on the basis 
of Panama currency or its equivalent. 
Those on the gold pay roll include mechan- 
ics, skilled artisans of all classes, clerks 
and higher offi- 
cials, most of 
whom are Amer- 
icans ; those on the 
silver pay roll in- 
clude principally 
the common labor- 
ers who are prac- 
tically all foreign- 
ers. Of the 5,960 
Panama railroad 
employees, 8 3 
were on the gold 
pay roll. 

In his message 
to Congress, deliv- 
ered December 5, 

1910, President Taft advocated the for- 
tification of the canal so as to enable the 
United States to defend it in case of war. 
Foreign nations oppose fortification but, 
as the work is entirely an American one, 
it is probable that provision will be made 
by this country for its defense. 

'A' <i>i «.' 

LARGEST OF POWER PLANTS. 

One of the largest power plants in the 
world — if not the largest — is located at 
Necaxa, Mexico, ninety-six miles northeast 
of the City of Mexico. Here, in the rugged 
mountains, and against seemingly impreg- 
nable obstacles, modern engineering ex- 
perts have constructed a power plant pro- 
ducing 250,000 horsepower of energy. The 
waters of the Necaxa river are held in 




POWER HOUSE OF NECAXA SYSTEM. 



check and a reservoir of 50,000,000 cubic 
feet capacity, formed by a stone and con- 
crete dam 1,300 feet wide and 194 feet 
high. From the level of this reservoir the 
water is conducted through monster pipes, 
or penstocks, to the power house 1,400 feet 
below the level of the dam. 

In this power house three 7-foot streams 
of water, given 
terrific force by 
their mad down- 
ward rush of 1,400 
feet, operate im- 
mense dynamos 
ivhich generate the 
250,000 h. p. of 
electrical energy 
already referred 
to. This energy 
is carried, in the 
form of a 60,000 
volt current, 
through big cop- 
per cables, to Mex- 
ico City, 

In this latter city, 95 miles away from 
the plant, the power thus supplied furnishes 
practically all the motive force required in 
a community of 500,000 people. It runs all 
the electric lights, the various trolley lines, 
operates elevators, and machinery in gen- 
eral. But this does not begin to exhaust 
the power supply of the Necaxa plant, and 
a large amount of energy is furnished to 
operate heavy mining machinery in the 
mining camps of El Oro and Pachuca. As 
has been true of many other large power 
projects, the demand for power from this 
plant has grown faster than the plant could 
be enlarged. The construction has occupied 
seven very busy years and is not yet com- 
pleted, though enough power is now being 
developed to supply all the needs of a 
population of more than half a million. At 



THE GREAT PANAMA CANAL 



67 



NV3DO OIJIOV<f 




j^t^sraaitt*^^ 



first it ■was planned to develop 50,000 
horsepower but it was soon seen that this 
would be inadequate. Before the original 
power house was completed it was neces- 
sary to change the plans and provide for 
one much larger than was originally in- 
tended. Now it furnishes 250,000 horse- 
power, and the engineers have a plan 
whereby the capacity may be duplicated by 
the establishment of another power plant 
further down the mountain side where wa- 
ter which has once turned the turbines will 
be made to do duty over again in a similar 
capacity. 

BUSIEST CANAL IN THE WOELD. 
Another canal of great importance from 
the commercial viewpoint is the Sault Ste. 
Marie, which connects the waters of Lakes 
Superior and Huron. It affords a safe 
passage for vessels around the St. Mary's 
falls. Official records shoAv that seven 
times as much freight goes through the 
Sault Ste. Marie canal in six months, al- 
most exclusively American tonnage, as the 
entire world sends through the Suez Canal 
in a year. This freight consists principally 
of iron ore, coal and grain. Of iron ore 
alone 39,594,944 tons have been taken 
through the Sault Ste. INIarie canal in one 
season of six months, many of the vessels 
carrying cargoes of 10,000 tons each. This 
means a saving of $160,000,000 in freight 
tolls. During the same time 93,135,775 
bushels of wheat were transported, the 
freight saving being $6,250,000. At a con- 
servative estimate 80,000,000 tons of 
freight pass through the canal every six 
months. Loaded in 30-ton cars this would 
require 2,666,666 cars, the combined length 
of which would reach around the world. 
To haul these ears in trains of forty cars 
each would take 66,666 powerful mogul 
locomotives, and entail the services of not 
less than 330,000 train men. 



SCIEXCE, IXVEXTIOX AXD DISCOVERY 



69 



LAKES-TO-THE-GULF WATERWAY 
As a forerunner to a deep waterway con- 
necting the great lakes with the Gulf of 
^[exico, the people of Chicago have con- 
structed a drainage canal from that city to 
Lockport, near Joliet, 111., a distance of 
28.05 miles. The maximum dimensions of 
this work are: Bottom width, 202 feet; 
top width, 290 feet : depth of water, 22 feet ; 
maximum flow through narrowest channel, 
300,000 cubic feet per minute. This great 
work, which was begun September 3d, 1892, 
has cost to date (January 1st, 1911) about 
.$60,000,000. 

Previous to the construction of the canal, 
the sewage-laden waters of the Chicago 
river, carrying the offal and refuse of x 
city of 2,000,000 people, emptied directly 
into Lake Michisran, from Avhich all the 



drinking water for the city is obtained. 
The drainage canal reverses the flow of the 
river, and sends the sewage-laden waters 
southwest ward, via the Desplaines and Illi- 
nois rivers, to the Mississippi. 

It has been the hope of the projectors of 
the drainage canal, and they are still work- 
ing hard to this end, to make it the start- 
ing link in a great lakes-to-the-gulf water- 
way. It is urged that by use of the new 
canal and improvements in the Desplaines, 
Illinois and Mississippi rivers, it will be 
possible to send vessels of large size direct 
from Chicago to all the ports of the world 
and avoid the present expensive transfer 
of cargoes. With this object in view the 
canal has been so constructed that com- 
paratively slight changes will make it 
capable of caring for a flow of 600.000 




DAM AT LOCKPORT, ON THE CHICAGO D. 



70 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



cubic feet of water per minute. It is esti- 
mated that $27,000,000 will complete the 
work from the end of the present drainage 
canal to St. Louis, a distance of 328 miles. 
This amount the Federal government is 
asked to appropriate. It is claimed that 
the investment of this amount would be 
justified by the amount of commerce be- 
tween Chicago and St. Louis alone, leaving 
out of question the tonnage to and from 
the world's ports via the Gulf of Mexico. 



1895 to 1899 provision was made for a spe- 
cial rate of 11/2 per cent. On this showing 
argument is made that the raising of the 
$27,000,000 or $30,000,000 needed to com- 
plete the work by the Federal government 
would not be felt by the people of the coun- 
try at large, and that the investment would 
be a profitable one, direct benefits being 
obtained in the lower freight rates which 
consumers would pay. 




GREAT DAM ACROSS THE NILE— UPPER EGYPT. 



Now that the Panama Canal is well on the 
way to completion, it is argued that the 
construction of a lakes-to-the-gulf water- 
way would result in an immense saving to 
the American people in shipments to and 
from Oriental ports. 

All of the $60,000,000 invested in the con- 
struction of the Chicago drainage canal has 
been raised by the taxation of property in 
a district containing 185 square miles, 142 
of which are within the limits of the city. 
The tax rate is one-half of one per cent an- 
nually, although for the five years from 



MAKING A NEW 
RIVER BED. 

Until recently 
Lime Kiln Cross- 
i n g , in the 
lower Detroit 
river, has been 
known as the 
"Hell Gate of the 
Lakes." It has al- 
ways been a seri- 
ous menace to nav- 
igation because of 
the numerous sub- 
merged rocks, 
many of them 
coming within two 
feet of the surface, 
government has ex- 



The United States 
pended millions of dollars in efforts to blast 
away these rocks, but as fast as the course 
was deepened the size of vessels was in- 
creased, so the danger of running on the 
submerged rocks remained as great as ever. 
C. H. Locher, a contractor, is now at work 
on a project which promises to do away 
with the difficulty. This has involved the 
construction of an immense coffer dam, the 
pumping dry of the river for a distance of 
eight miles, and the removal of the rock bed 
for depths varying from 8 to 20 feet. The 



II 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



71 



total cost of the work will be $8,000,000, 
but a safe waterway will be provided for 
! vessels of 2J:-foot draft. 

j 'M «? &' 

j MOVING TWO MILES OF RIVER. 

Picking up a two-mile section of a river 
of fair size and moving it bodily to a new 
location half a mile distant, may appear to 
be an impossible feat. It has been accom- 



plished, however, in the case of the Grand 
Calumet river, at the new steel manufac- 
turing town of Gary, Ind. The United 
States Steel Corporation wanted to erect 
a plant on a certain tract of land, but the 
river was in the way. So the company's 
engineers simply moved the river out of the 
way by diverting two miles of it to a new 
channel half a mile distant, at a cost of 
about $500,000. 




ELEVATION OF SALT RIVER DAM— HIGHEST IN THE WORLD. 



LARGEST DAM IN THE WORLD. 

In connection with the Salt River (Ari- 
zona) irrigation project. Uncle Sam has 
built the largest dam in the world. It is 
a mass of masonry 270 feet high from foun- 
dation to parapet, and contains 300,000 
cubic yards of rock work. It impounds 
more than a million acre-feet of water, 
enough to cover one million acres with 
water one foot deep. The water forms a 
lake 25 miles long, and from one to two 
miles wide. The work cost between $3,- 
000,000 and $4,000,000. The masonry is 



165 feet thick at the bottom of the dam, 
and 16 feet at the top. In order to divert 
the waters of Salt River while the dam 
was being constructed a tunnel 500 feet 
long was cut through the solid rock on 
one side of the canyon. The country in 
the immediate vicinity of the dam is so 
rough that a seven-mile wagon road which 
had to be built in order to get supplies in, 
cost $25,000 a mile, which is about as much 
as first-class railway construction costs for 
grading, rails, track laying, culverts, etc. 



72 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



THE "ONE-RAIL" RAILWAY 



Louis Brennan, an English inventor, 
astounded the scientific experts a short 
time ago, with his demonstration before the 
Royal Society. Brennan is no ordinary 
dreamer, for the British government paid 
him $550,000 for his patent torpedo, and is 
now spending $25,000 building a monorail 
ear 12 ft. wide, under the direction of the 
war department. Indeed the inventor pre- 
dicts the railway ear of the future will be 
several times as wide as now, and two or 
three stories high. It will travel upon a 
single rail, and cross rivers on a single steel 
cable if conditions do not favor the use of 
piles or piers. The propelling power may 
be steam, electricity or gasoline. If Bren- 
nan 's expectations are realized his system 
will revolutionize the operation of railways 
throughout the world. 

Monorail systems are not new, but here- 
tofore the cars have either been suspended, 
or held in poise by guide wheels on each 
side of the carrying rail. 

The secret of the Brennan system is the 
use of a gyroscope within each car. He has 
studied this mysterious piece of mechanism 
for 30 years and is said to be one of only 
three men in the world who really under- 
stand it. He says : 

"The characteristic feature of the system 
of transportation is that each vehicle is 
capable of maintaining its balance upon an 
ordinary rail laid upon ties on the ground, 
whether it be standing still or moving in 
either direction at any rate of speed, not- 
withstanding the center of gravity is sev- 
eral feet above the rail and the wind pres- 
sure, a shifting load, centrifugal action, or 
any combination of these forces may tend 
to upset it. 

"Automatic stability mechanism of ex- 
treme simplicity, carried by the vehicle 




CAR OP THE FUTURE. THREE STORIES 

HIGH. MONO-R.A.IL. (ONE-RAIL 

SYSTEM.) 



itself, endows it with this power. The 
mechanism consists essentially of two fly- 
wheels rotated directly by electric motors 
in opposite directions at a high velocity, 
mounted so that by their gyrostatic action 
their stored up energy can be utilized. 
These flywheels mounted on high-class bear- 
ings are placed in air exhausted cases, so 
both air and journal friction is reduced to a 
minimum, consequently the power required 
to keep them in rapid motion is extremely 
small. 

"The wheels are placed in a single row 
beneath the center of the car and are car- 
ried on bogies or compound bogies, which 
are not only pivoted to provide for horizon- 
tal curves in the track but for vertical ones 
also. By this means the cars can run upon 
curves even of less radius than the length 
of the vehicle itself, or on crooked rails, or 
on rails laid over uneven ground without 
danger of derailment. 

"The motive power may be either steam, 
petrol, oil, gas, or electricity. I use petrol 
(gasoline) and an electric generating set 
carried by the vehicle itself to supply the 
current to the motor's stability mechanism. 

"Everything points to a great economy 
resulting from making the ears wider in 
proportion to their length than on ordinary 
railways. Therefore it has been decided to 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



73 



make an experimeutal coach 12 ft. wide. 
Brakes capable of being operated by pneu- 
matic or manual power are provided for all 
wheels. 

"The rail only requires to be of the same 
weight as one of the rails of an ordinary 
line in order to carry the same load on the 
same number of wheels in each case. The 
ties also only require to be one-half the 
usual length. 

"The 
bridges 
would be of 
tlie simplest 
possible 
c n s truc- 
tion, a sin- 
g 1 e wire 
hawser 
stretc h e d 
across a 
ravine or 
river being 
all that is 
necessary 
for tempo- 
rary work. 

Strange to say, the lateral swaying of the 
hawser does not disturb the balance of the 
cars, and the strongest winds will fail to 
blow them off. In other cases for bridge 
building a single row of piles wdth the rail 
on top suffices, or a single girder carrying 
the rail may be conveniently used. 

"The speed can be from twice to thrice 
that of ordinary railways, owing to the 
smoothness in running and the total absence 
of lateral oscillation." 

Sir Hiram ]\Iaxim, while admitting the 
success of the demonstration, pronounced 
the apparatus "a highly scientific toy," but 
does not believe the same results wall fol- 
low when the system is applied to actual 
practice with standard size cars operating 
out of doors, and states : 



"I think his plan to keep the carriages 
from tipping by the action of the gyroscope 
will be beset with a great many difficult 
problems, so difficult, in fact, as to make 
the whole scheme absolutely impracticable. 

"It is quite safe to say that if Brennan's 
trains were running east or west and there 
was a strong wind from the north, the wind 
would exert considerable force on the train 




BRENNAN'S MONO-RAIL— SIX-FOOT MODEL OPERATED ON IRON HAWSER. 

in the same direction, and I think that, un- 
der these conditions, the plane of the gyro- 
scope would gradually yield, capsizing the 
train. 

On the other hand Brennan operated his 
small car with one side greatly overloaded, 
and claims that in proportion to size of ear 
and its unbalanced load, any wind pressure 
short of a hurricane would be no more 
severe test to a car of ordinary size. What 
can be done under actual working condi- 
tions will remain a question iintil the gov- 
ernment makes the test. Until then the 
subject will continue to be one of absorbing 
interest to engineers and scientists. 

In 1910 two mono railroads were in oper- 
ation, one near London by Mr. Brennan, 
and the other in Germany. 



7-1 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 




The molten metal 



MAKING A STEEL CASTING, 
iseharged through an orifice in the great kettle, swung over the molds, 
flows in a fiery stream to the place prepared for it. 



SCIEXCE, IXVEXTIOX AXD VISCOVERY 



75 



IRON AND STEEL INDUSTRIES 



Steel is the material from which this 
industrial age builds its marvelous machin- 
ery, its great buildings, its railways and 
its steamships. Steel, it is, upon which our 
multi-millionaires have built their fortunes, 
fortunes which excel all wealth in the his- 
tory of the world. The steel trust, it is, 
the formation of which has done more than 
any other single influence to draw the at- 
tention of the public at large to the enor- 
mous consolidations of capital for the dom- 
inance of the industrial world, not alone 
in America, but all over the globe. So it 



becomes of prime interest and importance 
to observe the progress of the industry and 
its products from the mine to the consumer. 
There is a wide distance between the 
primitive miner and molder of prehistoric 
times, with his rough furnace, his rude ap- 
pliances, and the customers of his neighbor- 
hood, and the remarkable organization of 
mines, transportation facilities and manu- 
facturing plants which now unite to form 
the great iron and steel interests. The 
United States Steel Corporation, as the 
trust is officially entitled, witli its capital 




Copyrignt, 



by Detroit Photographic Co. 

ORE DOCKS AT ASHTABULA, OHIO. 



76 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



of $1,100,000,000, is by far tke greatest 
organization in the world. And yet it does 
not include by any means all the branches 
of the industry in America and the foreign 
fields, in which other great organizations 
exist. Organized by J. Pierpont Morgan 
as prime mover, and including such stock- 
holders as Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rock- 
efeller, Marshall Field, and other national 



rails, structural steel, bridges, armor-plates, 
tin, sheet steel and tubes. It is readily 
seen that the ramifications of such an indus- 
try become world-wide. 

The processes of iron mining, where ore 
is produced on a large scale, differ mate- 
rially from those of coal mining or the min- ' 
ing of other metallic ores such as gold, cop- 
per, lead or zinc. The most noteworthy 




BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OP A GREAT PENNSYLVANIA STEEL MILL. 



characters, the very volume of its capital 
and the diversity of its interests has made 
it world-famous. Its president, Charles M. 
Schwab, has been reputed to receive 
$1,000,000 a year salary, although it may 
be doubted whether this information is ac- 
curate. The functions of this corporation 
include the mining of iron, the transporta- 
tion of it to its own mills of many dif- 
ferent kinds and in many locations, and 
the manufacturing of it into almost every 
product of iron and steel that is demanded 
on a large scale, particularly railway 



iron region of the United States is that 
around Lake Superior, in which the three 
states of Michigan, Minnesota and Wis- 
consin yield more than two-thirds of all the 
16,000,000 tons of iron ore produced an- 
nually in this country. Michigan alone 
contributes nearly 6,000,000 tons of the 
product, and Minnesota follows with nearly 
4,500,000 tons. Alabama is the third state 
in production, yielding more than 2,000,- 
000 tons annually, and then follow in suc- 
cession Virginia, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin 
and Tennessee, ranging from 860,000 tons 



SCIE^'CE, INVENTIOX AXD DISCOVERY 



77 



down to 535,000 tons. The dozen other 
states where iron is found commercially do 
not yield a total product, among them all, 
of more than 1,000,000 tons. Comparing 
this product in the United States with that 
of the world, which amounts to something 
more than 63,000,000 tons a year, we find 
that our country produces more than one- 
fourth the total, and more than its nearest 
competitor, which is Great Britain, with 
about 13,000,000 tons. Germany follows 
closely upon Great Britain, but no other 
country except Spain even passes the 5,000,- 
000-ton mark. 

The remarkable iron ranges of the Lake 
Superior region are peculiarly available 
because of their proximity to the great 
lakes, by which the product may be shipped 
directly and cheaply by large steamers to 
the manufacturing regions of Ohio and 
Pennsylvania, where abundant coal is 
found and where great mills have been 
built. Three distinct iron ranges in Michi- 
gan are recognized, all in the upper penin- 
sula, and trending nearly east and west. 
These are the Marquette, Menominee and 
Gogebic ranges. The first shipments of ore 
from these deposits were made in 1856. 
Bessemer, Ironwood, Hurley, Republic, 
Champion, Ishpeming, Xegaunee, and 
other towns in this part of the state and in 
the edge of Wisconsin have become famous 
the country over for the remarkable min- 
eral wealth they have yielded. Escanaba, 
^[anistique, Marquette and Ashland are 
the shipping ports on the great lakes, from 
which this product is sent. 

Two iron ranges in Minnesota, the Ver- 
.milion and the Mesaba, lying north of Du- 
luth, furnish the iron from this state. The 
most important mining points are Ely, 
Tower, Virginia, Hibbing and Biwabik. 



Their shipments are made from Duluth and 
Two Harbors. 

Most of the iron ranges of the Lake Su- 
perior region can be worked by stripping 
off the surface deposits and useless vegeta- 
ble mould, and worthless mineral sub- 
stances, and then digging the available ore 
from the open pits. This becomes quarry- 
ing rather than mining, as the word is gen- 
erally understood, but though it may lack 
some of the more picturesque features of 
mining operations deep in the earth, it is 
much more convenient commercially, and 
makes the cost of the product far less than 
it would be by way of shafts and tunnels. 

The brown ore is carried down to the 
lakes from the mines in an almost endless 
succession of trains, and dumped on the ore 
docks or loaded directly upon vessels wait- 
ing for it. Scores of great cargo carriers 
ply from these ports on the upper lakes 
down to Lake Erie, carrying their store of 
Lake Superior iron ore for the Pennsyl- 
vania and Ohio furnaces. This single in- 
dustry employs a very large proportion of 
the fleets on the great lakes. At the other 
end of their route they deposit the cargo 
once more upon the docks of the manufac- 
turing town, or into the railway cars that 
are to carry it inland to smelters and blast 
furnaces. The processes of loading and un- 
loading these cargoes between ship and 
train have become so perfected by the use 
of mechanical appliances, that thousands 
of tons may be handled within a very few 
hours. 

The iron and steel industries of Pennsyl- 
vania so far lead all others, that a view of 
them will serve to characterize the whole 
country. Annually the Keystone State 
produces 60 per cent of all the steel of the 
United States, 50 per cent of the pig irou 




I 



SCIENCE, IXVEXTIOX AND DISCOVERY 



79 



and over 40 per cent of the tin plate. The 
output of pig iron annually approaches 
5,000,000 tons, with a value of more than 
$50,000,000. The steel output is nearly 
4,500,000 tons, and the total value is about 
$125,000,000. Blast furnaces, rolling mills 
and steel mills of every variety help to bring 
"wealth to the state. The crude iron ore as 
it comes from the mines is taken through 
all the necessary processes, until it becomes 
the finished product, for use in complicated 
machinery, for bridge building, or for rail- 
way construction. 

The ore as it comes from the mine is 
mixed with earth, rock, sand and other min- 
eral substances which must be removed, and 
the first form it takes is that of pig iron, 
ready for the foundry. There is a melting 
room in which is a great cupola, cylindrical 



in shape, standing erect like a huge vertical 
boiler and lined with fire brick. A coke 
fire is started in the bottom of the cupola, 
and on top of the fire is dumped a mass of 
iron ore, alternating with lime and coke. 
There is a blast pipe below, through which 
a strong draught is driven, and a stack 
above from which the smoke and gases es- 
cape. The metallic iron melts out of the 
ore by the action of the heat, stimulated by 
the blast, and the lime takes up such im- 
purities as cannot be removed by the heat 
itself. The metallic iron, melting, runs to 
the bottom of the cupola, where it accumu- 
lates in a liquid mass. The floor of the 
great room is made of sand, in which long 
troughs are marked, connecting with a main 
channel. "When the iron is all melted in 
the cupola, a spout below is suddenly 




STEEL "INGOTS" AND "BILLETS" READY FOR MANUFACTURERS' USB. 




TON STEEL INGOT FOR A MODERN GUN. 



This is the form taken by the steel when the first casting is made in constructing heavy artillery for 
battleships or coast defense. From this ingot the great weapon is turned and bored. 



SCIEXCE, IXTEXTIOX AXD DISCOVEFY 



81 



opened, and the molten mass flows out in a 
fierj stream. In these troughs of sand it 
cools gradually and is broken off into proper 
lengths for convenient handling. This is 
pig iron. 



sticking up from its chains. This passes it 
into the grip of a succession of great roll- 
ers, through which it is squeezed like a wet 
cloth through a laundry wringer, contin- 
ually increasing in length and diminishing 




MAKING CAR WHEELS— MOLDS READY FOR POURING. 



The most complete manufacturing 
plants, however, convert their iron into 
steel directly, without permitting the pigs 
to cool, thus saving a second heating. Little 
cars lined with fire brick receive the melted 
iron, and carry it to the top of another cu- 
pola, which is the steel converting crucible. 
This is an even hotter blast, with steady 
currents of air and sometimes oil used to 
get the desired heat. Carbon, manganese, 
and other chemicals that produce the differ- 
ent varieties of steel, are added here. 
"When the process is complete to produce 
whatever qualities are desired, the con- 
tents of the cupola are received into molds 
Dn the floor until cool enough to handle. 
The lump of metal is now a steel ingot. 

If it is intended for railway rails, the 
molds are picked up by cranes and tongs, 
and the ingot is delivered to a continuously 
traveling platform or bed, with projections 



otherwise. At last it takes familiar shape, 
and in a few hours from the time it left 
the cupola, becomes the finished railway 
rail. 





- ■ - t 


-^^Is 


K 


r-^^m 


. > 


,/^^teV| - 




^ir- - -^-mm 




L.-JM 




\: -.f^-^^'^'''^'^^^-.:- 


" -■ 


\i>--^^^ 


^'.,' ■ 



OPENING THE MOLDS. 



SCIENCE, IXVENTWN AND DISCOVERY 



83 



COAL MINING AND COKE MAKING 



Deep down iu the earth, thousands upon 
thousands of men are working day and 
night, mining the coal which is an essential 
factor in the whole industrial activity of 
the world. With all the new forms of power 
that have been devised by ingenious in- 
ventors of late years, it has not yet proved 
£)0ssible to eliminate or even to reduce the 
uses of coal. Electric power, except in those 
isolated instances where it is generated by 
a water-fall, requires, somewhere, that 
great furnaces and boilers shall be em- 
ployed in the first instance. Electric light 
may partially supersede gas, and so reduce 
some of the coal con- 
sumption in this di- 
rection, but the coal 
must be burned to 
produce the power 
which drives the dy- 
namos. The burning 
of wood for fuel has 
been greatly reduced, 
owing to the defor- 
estation of large 
areas, and a resulting 
greater demand has 
been made upon the 
coal-bearing regions. 
The settlement of our 
immense prairie 
states, where cold 
rules through a long 
winter, has likewise 
shared in the stim- 
ulus to coal mining. 
And industrially, the 
enormous growth of 
manufacturing entcr- 




eOAL MINER WITH SAFETY LAMP. 



prises and the extension of railways has 
been a factor of prime importance in the 
coal trade of recent years. 

Cautious scientists more than once have 
expressed alarm over the threatened exhaus- 
tion of the world's coal supply. And yet it 
appears true that the economical utilization 
of coal by improvements of power applica- 
tions, will more than counterbalance the in- 
creased consumption of the essential fuel, 
and that after all nature will preserve a bal- 
ance in some way. Great areas are known 
to exist where coal is plentiful, hardly yet 
touched by the miner's hand. Siberia and 
the Chinese Empire 
are noteworthy ex- 
amples of this. Pe- 
troleum fields, yield- 
ing apparently limit- 
less quantities of fuel 
oil, have been discov- 
ered in many parts 
of the world, and ex- 
cept on the shores of 
the Caspian Sea have 
been made use of 
hardly at all. Texas, 
the Mexican penin- 
sula of Lower Cali- 
fornia, Central Si- 
beria, the East In- 
dies, and the mid- 
Australian desert, 
come into this cate- 
gory. Such natural 
forces, eternal and 
world wide, as the 
winds, the tides of 
the ocean and the 




I 



SCIENCE, TXVEXTION AND DISCOVERY 



85 



heat of the sun, are attracting the atten- 
tion of great scientists as offering rich 
supplies of power for man's mechanical 
use as soon as science finds the way. Under 
such conditions as these, thus briefly out- 
lined, it seems a needless anxiety to con- 
cern ourselves to-day with the possible ex- 
haustion of the world's fuel supply in the 
course of a dozen centuries. 

The first use of coal for industrial pur- 



into the earth as some in the old world. 
The deepest coal mine known is near Tour- 
nay, Belgium, extending 3,542 feet into the 
earth. The deepest coal shaft in England 
is in the Dunkirk mine of Lancashire, 
which measures 2,824 feet. 

Pennsylvania so far leads all other states 
of the union in its production of coal that 
a description of the industry there will 
serve to characterize it throus;hout the coun- 




DOWN IN THE TUNNEL OP A COAL MINR. 



poses in England was in the year 1234, if 
the records are truthful. After nearly 700 
years, England still leads in the production 
and use of coal, being the only country ex- 
ceeding the United States in the extent of 
the industry. The annual output of coal 
in Great Britain is more than 200,000,000 
tons, while that of the United States is ap- 
proximately 195,000,000 tons every year. 
Our American mines, being of more recent 
development, have not penetrated so deep 



try. Its total product is always more than 
half that of the entire American yield 
from all the mines, and exceeds annually 
105,000,000 tons. So commanding is this 
industry in the Keystone State that the pop- 
ular mind always associates the state and 
the product, and Pittsburg has gained the 
name of the Smoky City, thanks to the great 
manufactories and mines operating in its 
vicinity. 

Coal was discovered in the Schuylkill dis- 



86 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 




MOTIVE POWER 



(The compressed air engine, by its additional strength and safety, 

coal mines.) 



MINE— PAST AND PRESENT. 
gradually i 



lacing the mule in 



trict in 1790, and thirty years later the first 
regular shipment was made to Philadel- 
phia. Two kinds of coal are mined, anthra- 
cite and bituminous, or, more popularly 
speaking, hard coal and soft coal. The area 
from which the former is produced meas- 
ures less than 500 square miles, and that of 
the soft coal nearly 9,000 square miles. But 
the former excels the latter slightly in ton- 
nage produced, and by its greater value per 
ton exceeds the soft coal more than two to 
one in total value. 

Let us now glance at the processes by 
which coal is mined in the heart of the 
earth, brought to the surface, and distrib- 
uted to the market. Down deep in the 
earth stands a grimy miner. On his cap is 
mounted a small lamp, surrounded by a 
screen, which throws a faint gleam of light 
around him and permits him to see the 



walls of black against which his efforts are 
directed. The lamp was the invention of 
Sir Humphrey Davy, and protecting the 
flames as it does from direct contact with 
inflammable gases which are frequently 
found in mines, goes far to avert the dan- 
ger of explosion. This Davy safety lamp 
has been a factor of prime importance in 
making possible mining operations in many 
places otherwise too dangerous to work. With 
pick and shovel the miner labors, breaking 
down the coal, and gradually enlarging the 
subterranean chamber in which he is work- 
ing. At intervals blasts of giant powder 
and dynamite are used to loosen and shat- 
ter great masses of coal. When this is to be 
done, the miners retire to a distance and 
wait until the dust and gases scattered by 
the explosion have dissipated. Then they 
return to the face of the cutting which they 



SCIEXCE, IXVEXTIOX AXD DISCOVERY 



87 



have been working, and continue their toil, 
ilost mines are compelled to use both 
vertical shafts and horizontal tunnels or 
''drifts," in the course of their operation. 
If the first opening is in the side of a hill, 
a tunnel may extend far into the earth be- 
fore the descent by a shaft begins. If, on 
the other hand, the mine to be opened is not 
located so as to be reached by a tunnel, a 
vertical shaft is sunk at once to the neces- 
sary depth. From the shaft the tunnels or 
drifts radiate in whatever direction the coal 
measures lie, and at different levels, so that 



work may be carried on in many places at 
the same time. Tracks are laid in all these 
tunnels or drifts, and on these, little tram 
cars run back and forth, to carrj- the coal to 
the surface. 'When they reach the shaft, 
they must be hoisted by powei'ful machin- 
ery on the outside. 

In European mines, women and children 
are often employed to push these cars back 
and forth, but in the United States, horses 
and mules are used. Even these in some 
mines have been superseded by locomotives, 
operated by compressed air. Such locomo- 




tTMa is the building through which coal passes on its way from mine to railway car. By screens 
and chutes it is cleaned and sorted into various sizes for market. 



SCTEXCE, TNVEXTTOX AXT) m^COVElRY 



89 



tives, to haul trains hundreds of feet under 
ground, must be very different from those 
we are accustomed to see on our steam rail- 
ro,ads. One of the greatest dangers the coal 
miner has to guard against is the explosion 
of fire-damp, which can be set off by a sin- 
gle tiny spark. It would not be possible, 
therefore, to use an engine operated by 
steam, with a firebox. The driving ma- 
chinery of these novel locomotives is not 
unlike that of engines of the more familiar 
type. The air supply is gained from great 
tanks carried over the driving wheels, in 
place of the ordinary locomotive boilers. 
The storage pressure capacity of these tanks 
is 600 pounds per square inch, from which 
200 pounds' working pressure is main- 
tained upon the engine cylinder. The sup- 
ply of air can be replenished readily in the 



tanks, from nozzles connected with high- 
pressure pneumatic tubes placed at the 
points convenient for the purpose. Such a 
locomotive can draw long trains of cars, of 
which the mule can handle but one, and at 
much faster speed. It is thus that mechan- 
ical inventions are steadily improving the 
industrial processes in almost every line of 
business. 

When the coal reaches the surface, either 
by tunnel or by shaft, it passes rapidly 
through a series of processes necessary to 
clean it, sort it into the various sizes or 
grades for the market, and bring it to the 
railway cars by w4iich it is to be shipped 
to the place of sale. A great coal "breaker," 
as the peculiar structure is called w^herc 
these processes are carried on, is a place of 
dust and noise, of rambling sheds, inclined 




COAL FROM MINE TO MARKET. 

(This illustration shows in striking manner a general view ot a mine, including the entrance to the 

tunnel, the breaker, and the loaded cars ready for shipment, with the miners' 

houses in the background.) 



90 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



planes, screens and chutes, a monster of 
architecture, but an important factor in the 
coal trade. The loaded cars right from the 
mines reach the breaker, high in the air, 
and are tilted so that thej dump their cargo 
into chutes provided for the purpose. As 
the coal rattles down through the winding 
way provided for it, it passes over a succes- 
sion of screens with meshes of various sizes. 
By this process it is sifted and sorted with 
mechanical precision until, finally reaching 
the bottom, each grade falls into the bins or 



railway cars provided for it, ready for the 
market. 

It is not enough to merely sort the coal 
into sizes. It must be cleaned as well, for 
few mines are free from slate and other im- 
purities which would reduce the value of 
the coal if left untouched. As the coal 
passes through the breaker and over 
the screens, it is watched by keen-eyed, 
deft-fingered boys, who pick out and throw 
aside whatever pieces of slate or stone 
they discover. A ''breaker-boy," as these 




COKE OVENS. 

(Far in the background men are seen with the apparatus which draws the coke out of the ovens, 
product is then carried through the long trough by an endless belt and thence by 
another }}elt, shown in the foreground, to the shipping sheds.) 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



91 



coai-pickers are called, is taking the first 
step in the life of a miner, and in every 
mining town there are numbers of such lit- 
tle fellows busily engaged and helping to 
earn the living for the household. The 
miners in many of our mining districts are 
foreigners, forming communities of their 
own and coming in 
touch but little with 
American manners of 
life and thought. Poor 
as they are, and begin- 
ning work at an early 
age, they have little 
opportunity to obtain 
more than the rudi- 
ments of an education. 
It is this element that 
forms one of the most 
difficult problems to 
deal with in our indus- 
trial and labor ques- 
tions. The transporta- 
tion of coal from mine 
to market is one of 
the most important and 
lucrative parts of the 
business of many great 
railways. In Pennsyl- 
V a n i a, particularly, 
there are lines Avhich 
are classified as "the 
coal roads" because this 
traffic forms such a dominant part of their 
entire business. There is a constant proces- 
sion of coal trains between the mines and 
the large cities and manufacturing towns 
near them. Pittsburg and Allegher;y are 
conspicuous examples of cities virtually 
built up by the fortunate combination of 
coal and iron areas convenient i^ them. 
Here, too, the Ohio River becomes an im- 



portant aid in the traffic. Barges loaded 
with coal are lashed together, to form im- 
mense flotillas which are towed down 
stream on the Ohio, to such other markets 
as can be reached to advantage by that 
route. Ohio, West Virginia, Kentucky, 
Indiana, and indeed the whole of the Ohio 




DEVICE FOR REMOVING COKE FROM OVENS. 
(The rake-shapfid fixture draws the charred coke out of the oven and into the 
trough, whence it is delivered as described in the accompanying view.) 



and Mississippi Valleys, share in this dis- 
tribution «f the Pennsylvania product. 

A very large part of the Pennsylvania 
coal product is converted into coke for use 
in the steel mills and manufactories where 
it is needed. The coke furnaces thus be- 
come a feature of the coal industry, and 
they have grown to immense proportions 
because of the demand of the steel trade. 



92 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



The mechanical appliances used in the man- 
ufacture 'of coke have been improved so that 
virtually all the work from the mine to the 
railway car with the finished product, can 
be carried on by machinery. The coke is 
drawn from furnaces where the coal has 
undergone the roasting or charring process, 
by ingenious mechanism which works like 
a great iron hand on the end of a long steel 
arm. This is carried on a heavy car, which 



anthracite or hard coal. Illinois is second 
in the production of bituminous, or soft 
coal, with more than 20,000,000 tons annu- 
ally, and West Virginia is third. A large 
coal field exists in Georgia, where it is con- 
venient to an iron-producing region. This 
condition, as in Pennsylvania, induces the 
development of a large coke district. Ohio, 
Indiana, Virginia, Iowa, Missouri and Col- 
orado are other states in which the coal in- 




LOADIXG COKii: INTO CARS. 
At the right are the ovens, with a trough in front through which the coke is carried by an > 
belt. Thip uiscbarges upon another belt on the incline in the background, and thus 
it is carried direcJy into the cars. 



■ :• .s back and forth on a railway track in 
Iront of the row of furnaces. An engine 
mounted on the same car, furnishes the 
power for this giant hand, which rakes the 
coke from the furnace into a long trough. 
An endless belt in this trough forms a cai-- 
rier, connecting with another one of the 
same kind, by which the product is loaded 
directly into the cars for shipment. 

Pennsylvania, besides producing more 
than half of the total coal yield of the 
United States, furnishes virtually all of the 



dustry has reached large proportions, and 
in many other states of the union successful 
mines are in operation, important in their 
contribution to the local demand. 

An important by-product of coal which is 
utilized in a multitude of ways, is coal tar, 
now so common that it has largely displaced 
pine tar. It is produced in the manufac- 
ture of gas, and from it we get the material 
used in every city pavement, as well as cre- 
osote, dyes, and various familiar medical 
remedies, such as acetanilid, etc. 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



93 



ZINC AND OTHER PRODUCTS OF THE MINES 



Among the minerals entering commonly 
into domestic and industrial uses is zinc, 
which is produced in certain districts of 
the United States in large quantities. The 
State of Missouri is the location of the 
most important zinc mines of the country, 
Avhich center about the city of Joplin in the 
southwestern part of the state. The de- 
velopment of zinc and lead mines within 
the last few years brought about the in- 
crease of the population of the place from 
10,000 to 26,000, betw^een 1890 and 1900. 
The zinc output here annually approaches 
150,000 tons, wath a value of considerably 
more than $3,000,000. Lead mines in the 
same vicinity yield about half that number 
of tons with about the same value. 



The rapid increase in the demand for 
electrical appliances of all sorts has in- 
creased in like measure the value and the 
need of zinc which is used so much in elec- 
trical mechanics. This has resulted to the 
profit 'of the zinc miners, in like degree as 
the copper interests have profited from 
the same cause. The enormous copper 
mines of northern Michigan, Montana and 
Arizona have multiplied in the value of 
their output within recent years, thanks to 
the demands of electricity in its varioias 
uses. The annual production of copper in 
Montana approaches $30,000,000, and the 
other producing states named are not far 
behind. The total annual value of our 
mineral products equals $650,000,000. 




A ZINC MINING SCENE. 



94 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 




STRIPPING BLUBBER. 
Scene ?t * North Pacific Whaling Station. 



I 



SCIEXCE, IXVEXTION AND DISCOVERY 



95 



THE "SCO'S" GREAT POWER CANAL 



The largest power canal in the -world is 
at Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, and is used 
for the operation of gigantic iron indus- 
tries. It provides for tlie reduction of 20,- 
000,000 tons of iron ore at the very door 
of the mines. 

In the water power development at the 
"Soo" is realized the utilization of the nat- 
ural force inherent in the waters of Lake 
Superior. There they flow out over a sand- 
stone ledge about a haK mile long, half a 
mile wide, with a fall of 20 feet. 

LAKE SUPERIOR GIVES THE "SOO" 
CANAL 200,000 HORSE POWER. 

Lake Superior covers an area of about 
36,000 square miles and is fed from a 
•vater-shed many times greater, the Sault 
Rapids being its only outlet. The quantity 
of the w'ater discharged fluctuates, with tbe 
varying conditions of precipitation and 
evaporation, from about 3,600,000 to 7,- 
000,000 ciibic feet per minute, which, rush- 
ing over the Sault Eapids, represents an 
equivalent of from 130,000 to 260,000 
horse power. 

Just south of the western entrance to the 
United States Ship Canal lies the intake 
to the power canal, about 950 feet wide. 
The total distance of the constructed water- 
way is about 13,000 feet, the w^idth from 
the expanded intake entrance gradually les- 
sening to 200 feet, excavated to such a 
level that, Avhen the full maximum power 
of the works is being used, water wdll flow 
at a uniform depth of 25 feet. 

CONSTRTTCnON Or THE CAXAL. 

The entire construction of the canal has 
been carried on with a view to the greatest 
efiiciency in delivering the energy of the 
water, and it is everlasting ia durability. 



Throughout the intake the sides of the 
canal are retained by timber cribs securely 
placed and framed, rendering the sides of 
the waterway smooth and permanent. The 
timber construction is continued to a point 
just below the water, and covered -with 
masonry construction. The canal sides 
through the rock formation are channeled 
out vertically, its walls and bed being 
smooth. All defects in stratification nre 
remedied by masonry construction, of 
which the embankments also consist. 

The flow area of the canal differs ^ith 
its different sections. The water will itow 
25 feet deep through the entire canal, and 
will attain a velocity of four and a half 
miles an hour. This will deliver, approxi- 
mately, 30,000 cubic feet of water every 
second to the turbines. 

The conduit terminates at the power 
house, which performs the function cf a 
dam, in which water wheels are so placed 
that the only escape for the water to the 
lower level is through them. 

The equipment consists of hydraulic and 
electric apparatus. Each hydraulic unit is 
composed of four new 33-inch American 
turbines, arranged in two parts on one 
shaft. Each pair is housed in one case and 
discharges into one draught tube. The in- 
stallation is of the horizontal, tandem type_, 
the shaft and operating rigging penetrating 
the steel-plate bulkhead and coming out on 
the dynamo floor side. Each hydraulic 
unit, under normal conditions, equals 568 
horse-power. 

Involved in the construction oi this cana] 
were 1,250,000 cubic yards of rock and 
3,000,000 cubic yards of sand excavated 
and dredged. This material waa aU utilized 



96 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



in reclaiming land under water, whicli is 
the property of the operating company. 
The material used consisted of 3,500,000 
lineal feet of piles, 170,000 tons of con- 
crete and monolithic blocks, 90,000 cubic 
yards of sandstone masonry, 32,000 square 
yards of dry sandstone pavement, 260,000 
barrels of cement, used in all masonry, and 
24,000 square feet of iron roofing. 

LABGE TRACT OF NEW LAND MADE 
TimOUGH EXCAVATION. 

Two hundred and sixty acres of land 
were reclaimed during the construction, be- 



ing filled in with the excavated material; 
2,800 lineal feet of navigation docks were 
built ; 22 miles of rails were laid and oper- 
ated. The excavation was carried on with 
an equipment of eight steam shovels, :?4 
locomotives and 350 four-yard dump-cars, 
all work being carried on night and day, 
excepting Sundays. 

The approximate cost of the entire right 
of way, canal, power-house, equipment, 
docks and appurtenant works, developing 
57,000 horse power, is about $4,000,- 
000. 



THE WORLD'S STUPENDOUS GRANARY 



Fifteen million barrels of flour is the 
annual output of the world's greatest gran- 
ary-, at Minneapolis. For some time this 
city of the JSTorthwest has been recognized 
AS the largest primary wheat market of the 
world, and also the greatest milling center. 

Thousands of persons make annual trips 
to Minneapolis to see the great mills, and 
observe, the process by which several train- 
loads of wheat are turned into flour in one 



day. But the methods of flour making hf ve 
undergone so many radical changes within 
the past few years that men who were on^e 
experts in the business would now he 
novices. 

GREAT INCREASE IN CAPACITY OF 
FLOURING MILLS. 

The number of flouring mills in Minne- 
apolis is no greater than it was 20 years 
ago, but the present annual output of 15,- 



J. 



&c 



WHEAT FIELD. DAKOTA 



SCIENCE, IWEM'WX A.W DIM:0\ ERY 



97 



000,000 barrels exceeds that of 20 years 
ago by more than 650 per cent, and this in 
the face of the fact that some of the larger 
plants manufacture, in addition .to their 
flour product, immense quantities of the 
■^.ifferent kinds of breakfast cereals no^v so 



LARGEST FLOUR MILL IN THE WORLD. 

As an illustration, the Pillsbury mill was 
constructed in ISSO with a daily capacity 
of 5,000 barrels, but it has been improved 
imtil its capacity is now 14,000 barrels. 
This is the lararest flour mill in the world. 




6 



.^M 



A BIAMMOTH GRAIN ELEVATOR — "THE GREAT XORTHERX," AT DXXUTH. 



commonly used. The gain in capacity is 
due to the fact that most of -the mills have 
been enlarged from time to time and 
equipped with the very best modem ma- 
chinery. 



MECHANICAL PROCESS OF A GREAT 
FLOUR MILL. 

The flour mills of the present are a won- 
derful triumph of scientific industry, and 
when in full operation one of them seemb 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



98 

almost a thing of life. The wheat is shov- 
eled by machinery from the car into a large 
pit, from which it is taken into the endless 
machinery of the mill. It is then hurried 
on, this way and that, through secret pas- 
sages, from one side of the big mill to the 
other, now up, now dawn, through this 
machine and that, until finally every kernel 
is divided into as many component parts 



ducts a portion of the Mississippi upon a 
big wheel, and all the intricate machinery 
in the giant mill responds with a harmony 
that seems almost human. 

DECREASE IN TH£ PRICE OF FLOUR. 

Incidentally it may be mentioned that 
while the mills have been increasing their 
capacity and improving their processes the 




DUST COLLECTORS AND PURIFIERS, PILLSBURY "A" MIIX, 



as the processes number, and each part 
drops into its own receptacle. It has been 
forced through all these by the mill's own 
machinery, without having been touched by 
human hands or seen by human eyes. E'o 
one is watching to see if it takes the proper 
course, or if any part of the machinery 
does its work; a lever is pulled which con- 



price of the product has been steadily de- 
creasing. In 1880 the average profit on a 
barrel of flour was about 75 cents, while 
now the millers think themselves fortunate 
when they figure up their profits and find 
that about 20 cents is realized after all ex- 
penses have been paid. 

It must not be inferred from this thai) 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



99 



tie business of milling has reached a crisis, 
or that the meager profits on a barrel of 
flour, as compared with those of the early 
days, have affected the milling industry. 
The price of flour has been reduced through 
natural causes, but the reduction has been, 
perhaps, more than offset by the increased 
capacity of the mills tlirough the introduc- 
tion of modern machinery. The lucrative- 



duced the price of grain ctirrying to ter- 
minal points in Mixuesota nearly, if not 
quite, 66 per cent. But little more than 
ten years ago it cost twenty-six cents a hun- 
dred pounds to ship wheat from Min- 
neapolis to Chicago; to-day the same 
amount is carried for ten cents. Twenty 
years ago it cost from 15 to 18 cents a 
bushel to ship wheat from Duluth to Buf- 




.GRINDING FLOUR, PILLSBURY 



ness of all the large manufacturing indus- 
tries to-day depends upon the great volume 
of the output rather than upon the large 
percentages of profit. 

THE NEW MONSTER ELEVATORS, 

Twenty years ago a car carried about 
four hundred bushels, but those now being 
built carry twelve hundred bushels. The 
building of new roads and improvements in 
methods of transportation have also r&- 



falo; to-day a rate of three cents a bushel 
would be excessive. At that time a good 
cargo was 30,000 bushels; now those fig- 
ures may be multiplied by ten. A great 
grain market, created and fostered by an 
extensive system like that at Minneapolis, 
has made a radical change in the problem 
of storage construction. 
THE MODERN TERMINAL ELEVATOBl. 
The modem terminal elevator, which is 
a child of necessity, has reached its present 



100 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOYEBY 



development tlirongli as 
luaiiv evolutions, i^cr- 
haps, as those of the 
raodern flour mill. 
There has been no 
change in recent years 
in the methods of oper- 
ating a terminal eleva- 
tor, except that in some 
cases electricity has been 
substituted for steam 
as power, and that in a 
few instances, the grain 
is conveyed by pneu- 
matic tubes instead of 
by cup-belts. But the 
shape and material of 
the structures have been 
completely revolution- 
ized. Some years ago, in this process of 
evolution, steel began to supplant wood as 
building material, and the Great jSTorthern 
steel elevator of Duluth, which is capable 




^ 



GRINDING FLOUR. 



By courtesy of the "Scientific American." 
BAKING BREAD IN ELECTRIC OVENS. 

of storing more grain under one roof than 
any other elevator in the world, is made 
wholly of steel. 

OUTSIDE STORAGE TAl^KS. 

Cylindrical 
tanks for storage 
, next began to be 
' pTocted outside 
;ind separate 
111 the eleva- 
lui. instead of 
ilic long bins in 
the elevator 
proper. Some 
a y e made of 
etool, bome of til- 
ing and some of 
cement. A wide, 
flai, rubber belt 
""^•rio=; the grain 
.1 the nipper 
iM.-iy of the ele- 
vating plants or 



w.li 




SCIEXCE, IXVEXTIOX AXD DISCOVERY 



101 



working house, to the tanks, and discharges 
it tlirough a hole in the roof. When 
grain is shipped from a tank it is conveyed 
from the bottom of the structure through 
a subterranean passage to the elevator pit 
on a belt similar to the overhead belt which 
carries it to the tank. From the pit it is 
e'.evated to the shipping floor and spouted 
t') a car. 

Jt is possible to keep grain making this 
circuit continu- w 

h 

ously, from the ^ 
pit to the top of J 
the "working 
huuse" by the 
cup-belt to the - 
t<jp of the tank ^ 
by the horizon- 
tal belt, to the 
bottom of the 
tank by gravita- 
tion, and then to 
the elevator pit 
again by the un- 
derground pas- 
-:!ge. Somtiines, 
!:unp grain is 
treated in this 
v.ay to dry it. 
. V conveying belt 
is three feet 

wide, and the stream of grain which falls 
upon its surface is from six to seven inches 
in diameter, A six-inch stream will empty a 
tank of about five thousand bushels of wheat 
;n an hour. Each plant consists of a dozen 
of these tanks, more or less, and their 
capacity is about 100,000 bushels each. 
These are much more expensive than the 
old-style houses, but the extra expense is 
offset in a few years' time by the saving in 



insurance. Being strictly fireproof no in- 
surance is carried on the structure or its 
contents. Thus, while the mills have passed 
from the primitive to the modern era, and 
tlie methods of transportation have been im- 
Ijroved, the elevators have kept pace with 
these improvements. 

STATE SUPEEVISION OF TERMINAli 
GRAIN MAilKETS. 

In addition, to the "Teat industries al- 




TESTING FLOUR, PILLSBURY "A." MILL. 

ready mentioned, Minnesota has a system 
of state supervision over the grain market 
at its terminal elevators, in which the grain 
dealers of the whole world are vitally in- 
terested. Other states aaopt similar meas- 
ures, but do not compare in efiiciency with 
this big cereal state of the northwest. Cer- 
tificates issued by Minnesota are accepted 
without question. In Illinois, the elevators 
are regulated by state commissioners. 



102 SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 

THE GEAIN PRODUCTION OF THE UNITED STATES IN BUSHELS, FOR CERTAIN YEARS: 
PREPARED FROM GOVERNMENT TABLES. 

Indian Corn. Wheat. Oats. Barley. Rye. 

1905 2,707,993,540 692,979,489 935,216,197 136,651,020 27,616,045 

1906 2,927,416,091 735,260,970 964,904,522 178,916,484 33,374,833 

1907 2,592,320,000 634,087,000 754,443,000 153,597,000 31,566,000 

1908 2,668,651,000 664,602,000 807,156,000 166,756,000 31,851,000 

1909 2,772,376,000 737,189,000 1,007,353,000 170,284,000 32,239,000 



i i Ir it [ FFtr \ f 
■ '^r [ Mr !r 
[ lijr 1 r r [ 





PILLSBURY "A- JITLL. THE tARGKST FL.OIJK MiL.1. IN THE WORLD. CAPACITr, 15,«Qt 
BARRELS DAILY. 



From the following table, taken from the 
''Year Book of the Department of Agricul- 
ture/' may be seen the relative food values 
possessed by various grades of flour, to- 
gether with the refuse matter. 



Components. 


illl 






pi 



Water 12.75 11.75 12.25 12.85 

Proteids 10.50 12.30 10.20 10.30 

Ether Extract.. 1.00 1.30 1.30 1.05 

Ash 50 .60 .90 .50 

Moist Gluten. . . 26.00 34.70 24.50 26.80 

Dry Gluten 10.00 13.10 9.25 10.20 

Carbohydrates . 75.25 74.05 75.65 75.30 



From the same authority are tabulated 
the following figures pertaining to a repre- 
sentative brand of self-raising flour. 



Components. i52 i:d-22 S5 

Water 12.30 12.75 11.75 

Proteids (factor 6.25). 10.10 10.50 12.30 

Moist Gluten 27.00 26.00 34.70 

Dry Gluten 9.65 10.00 13.10 

Ether Extracts 70 1.00 1.30 

Ash 4.00 .50 .60 

Carbohydrates 72.90 75.25 74.99 




LUMBERMEX BOATING DOWN A MOUNTAINSIDE. 

In British Columliia flumes are used to float logs from mountain tops to saw-mills. The men nail 
boards together and come down the same way, traveling sometimes a mile a minute. 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



LUMBERING IN AMERICAN FORESTS 



The forests of the world have been the 
source of shelter and prosperity for count- 
less millions, but never have they entered 
more fully into the industrial life of the 
people than they do to-day. In America 
alone the lumbering industry, with its 
branches, is recognized as one of the most 
important factors in our national prosper- 
ity. The forests began to serve us long be- 
fore we were born, for to the trees before 
the coal age we owe the enormous deposits 
of fuel which we are even now digging from 
the mines, for use in great manufacturing 
enterprises, in our railway locomotives, and 
in our households. 

But timber in its natural form is a source 
of wealth to any wooded country. It is an 
evidence of the increasing intelligence of 
mankind in this industrial age, that all the 
world over, influences are at work to pro- 
mote the preservation of the forests and to 
put an end to wasteful extravagance in their 
destruction. Estimates have it that the for- 
ests of the world cover 1,201,000,000 acres 
of land. Russia leads the list with 48 5,- 
000,000 acres, the United States comes sec- 
ond with 176,000,000 acres ; Canada third, 
174,000,000 acres; Brazil fourth, with 
135,000,000 acres, and then in succession 
Scandinavia, Austria, Germany, France 
and Italy, down to the countries of less 
consequence in forestry. Since 1848 the 
French, who have been most industrious in 
this direction, have converted 9,000,000 
acres of waste land into forest. Paris alone 
burns the timber of 50,000 acres annually, 
requiring a million acres of forest to keep 
up the supply. 

Forty billion feet of lumber is yearly 



used by the United States for the lumber 
and paper trade. This is equivalent to the 
product of about 4,000,000 acres of good 
virgin forest, an area equal to Rhode Island 
and Connecticut combined. This does not 
include the wood used for fuel, which is 
about four and a half times more. Four 
million feet is used for matches, the prod- 
uct of 400 acres of good virgin forest. 
About 620,000,000 cross ties are now laid 
on American railroads, and 90,000,000 new 
ties are required annually for renewals. 
There are now standing nearly 7,500,- 
000 telegraph poles and 750,000 new poles 
are required each year for renewals. These 
figures do not include telephone poles and 
the poles required on new railway lines. 
The timber used for tics and poles each year 
is equivalent to the product of 100,000 
acres of good virgin forest. The amount 




LOGGING CAMP IN MICHIGAN. 



106 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



of wood used in a single year for making 
shoe pegs is equal to the product of fully 
3,500 acres of good growth hard wood land. 
Lasts and boot trees require at least 500,- 
000 cords more. Most newspaper and pack- 
ing paper is made from wood. The total 
annual consumption of wood for paper pulp 
is equivalent to more than 800,000,000 
board feet of timber, 
equal to the growth of 
80,000 acres of prime 
woods. It is manifest 
that with such enormous 
inroads upon the forest 
areas of the United 
States, the time might 
come when the country 
would be virtually de- 
nuded of trees, if no 
measures were taken to 
prevent such a disaster. 
The effect of that would 
be much more far-reach- 
ing than the mere ter- 
mination of the fuel- 
wood supplies, and the 
supplies of wood for all 
the other purposes here- 
tofore mentioned, for the denuding of a 
country means its certain reversion to a 
desert condition. It is the forests that shel- 
ter and preserve the rainfall, yielding the 
streams that flow down into the prairies of 
our agricultural states. If the Eocky 
Mountains, for instance, were to suffer the 
loss of their forests, the snows which cover 
them in the winter would melt rapidly dur- 
ing the first days of spring time, and would 
flow away in disastrous floods, destroying 
the farms below. Later in the season, when 
water was needed, there would be none, and 
farms would suffer perpetual drought. 



Under the forests' shade, snow drifts, how- 
ever, melt gradually throughout summer, 
thus supplying never-failing streams for the 
watering of the thirsty crops in the valleys 
below. 

Recognizing these facts, Americans with 
foresight and prudence have induced the 
government to establish forest reserves in 




ELEPHANT PILING TEAK LOGS, BURMAII. 



the United States, where no timber may be 
cut except under the most rigid and exact- 
ing restrictions. There are forty-one of 
these forest reserves in the United States, 
created by presidential proclamations ac- 
cording to an act of Congress, and em- 
bracing a total estimated area of 46,410,- 
209 acres. The greatest of these is in Ore- 
gon, in which state a single reserve includes 
4,588,800 acres. California, Washington, 
Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, 
Utah, South Dakota, ISTew Mexico, Okla- 
homa, Arizona and Alaska are the other 
states and territories in which forest re- 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



107 



serves have been established by national 
law. With this protection, in spite of the 
depredations that are sometimes committed 
by forest fires and vandal woodsmen, we 
may expect that some of these great forests 
will be preserved to posterity. 

The forests of the eastern section contain 
large areas of both deciduous and evergreen 
trees, including maple, oak, chestnut, birch, 
hickory, walnut, beech, linden, elm and lo- 
cust. Characteristic trees of the south are 
oak, long-leaf pine, magnolia and palmetto. 
The cone-bearing trees include valuable cy- 
press, spruce, hemlock, cedar and larch. 



The forest areas of the Kocky Mountain 
ranges bear conifers, aspen and oak. The 
magnificent forests of Washington, Oregon 
and California are unrivaled. The trees^ 
chiefly conifers or evergreens, include 
Douglas fir, yellow pine, sugar pine, and 
valuable redwood. The standing timber in 
the United States is estimated at 2,300,- 
000,000,000 feet and the annual cut is 
40,000,000,000 feet. Of this conifers con- 
stitute three-quarters and the oak and other 
hard woods the remainder. 

In the early history of the country the 
chief lumbering interests were in Maine, 




LOG JAM IN THE LUMBERING REGION OF MICHIGAN. 



108 



SCIENCE, INVEXTWX AND DISCOVERY 



and the industry there remains very impor- 
tant, although far exceeded in later years 
by some of the western states. Michigan 
leads all other states in the lumber indus- 
try, with an annual production of nearly 
5,000,000,000 feet of lumber and many 
other incidental products from the timber 
flint i-- '-nf, Tli,-^ ]ov:qv peninsula in Michi- 



very great, with Oregon and Washington in 
the lead. 

The work of the lumbermen in the north- 
ern forests begins in the winter, when haul- 
ing on great sleds becomes the easiest way 
to bring the logs out of the forest. The life 
in the logging camps of Michigan at this 
season is one of hard work and little idle- 




SAWING A BIG LOG I 



gnn contains the most extensive pine for- 
ests in the country, although the area now 
is largely reduced. Wisconsin and Minne- 
sota are likewise leading states in the pro- 
duction of lumber and in the other forest 
industries. Georgia, Louisiana and other 
southern states produce large quantities of 
hard pine, and such other forest products 
as turpentine, pitch and tar. The lumber 
industries of the Pacific coast states are 



OREGON MILL. 



ness, but the men become strong in it, and 
return to the same employment year after 
year. The logs are hauled over the snow to 
the banks of the rivers, to await the thaw 
in the spring. When the ice breaks and 
the melting snows cause the streams to rise, 
the logs are picked up by the current and 
carried down stream rapidly toward their 
destination. This is usually a milling town 
at the mouth of the stream, where the logs 



SCIEXCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



are turned into lumber. It is at this time 
that the "log jams" or blockades occur, 
which call for such bravery on the part of 
the strong men who are urging them down 
stream, to break the jam and start the flow 
once more. On the larger rivers, the logs 
are sometimes lashed into huge rafts, and 
are towed by steamers to the milling towns. 
Thi\i is characteristic 
of the upper Missis- 
sippi and some of the 
larger rivers which flow 
into it. 

It is these lumbermen 
who have given to us 
the material from which 
millions of homes have 
been built, our furniture produced, our 
houses heated and a multitude of other im- 
portant commercial and domestic necessi- 
ties provided. 



must be the finest furs of the rarest north- 
ern animals, cut according to the fashion 
of the current season and finished with skill 
and beauty. Wool from the sheep, the 
camel and the alpaca is sheared, woven and 
marketed all over the world. Fiber plants 
are cultivated and utiMzed most deftly for 
the making of such fabrics as appeal to the 




IN A COTTON MILL— TEARING RAW COTTON FROM THE BALE. 



taste. Cotton is not the only vegetable fiber 
in use for thread, cloth and garments. In 
hemp, flax, jute, ramie, 



TEXTILE FABRICS IN AMERICA 

A.S civilization advances, mankind takes 
more thought how to be fed and sheltered 
and wherewith to be clothed. No longer do 
rude garments of rough skins serve the pur- 
pose. Instead, if skins are utilized, they 



different countries 

cocoanut-bark, pineapple fiber and other 
products are used locally for the production 
of cloth. The world over, however, cotton, 
wool and silk are the materials from which 
the garments of mankind are made. Linen 
is much reduced in favor, of late years, as 
cotton has multiplied. Silk, indeed, is the 
only fabric materially gaining on cotton 
and wool, and its advance is a natural one, 
justified by its beauty 
and explained by the in- 
crease of large trade 
with Japan, China and 
India, whence so much 
of the silk comes. 

The United States is 
the leader in the world's 
cotton trade. This val- 
uable product was first 
raised in the United 
States in Virginia in 

COTTON WEAVING, FROM THE SPOOL TO THE CLOTH. 1621, and WaS first ex- 




112 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 




WEAVER AT THE LOOM. 

ported from this country in 1747. Within 
the next fifty years the progress of the in- 
dustry was steady, but the difficulty in sep- 
arating the seed from the fiber was the cause 
of slow growth until, 
m 1793, Eli Whitney 
invented the cotton- 
gin. Since that time, 
the increase has been 
enormous and unin- 
terrupted, except dur- 
ing the Civil War, 
when industry in the 
south virtually 
ceased. By this time 
the acreage annually 
planted to cotton in the United States ap- 
proximates 25,000,000, and the annual pro- 
duction is above 10,000,000 bales, the an- 
nual value of the crop being about $325,- 
000,000. 

Egypt and India are the countries with 
the greatest cotton production after our 
own, but they fall far behind this coun- 
try. All of our southern states produce cot- 
ton, with Texas standing at the head of the 
list, Georgia and Mississippi as close rivals 
next, and South Carolina, Alabama, Ar- 
kansas, Louisiana and ISTorth Carolina fol- 
lowing in that order. The greatest cotton 




SILK WINDERS AT WORK. 



shipping ports and markets are Galveston. 
New Orleans, Mobile, Savannah, Charles- 
ton and Richmond. 

The manufacture of cotton in the United 
States has been growing rapidly in recent 
years. In 1890 the number of establish- 
ments for the preparation and manufacture 
of cotton and cotton goods was 2,641, and 
the capital employed was $366,000,000. 
For the manufacture of cotton goods alone, 
apart from mixed goods, there were 905 
mills, with an aggregate capital of $355,- 
000,000, employing 222,000 hands. The 
annual cost of material used was $155,000,- 
000, and the value of the products $268,- 
000,000. Ten years later the showing was 
greatly increased, 
chiefl}' by the estab- 
lishment of numerous 
important mills in 
the southern states 
themselves. The ten- 
dency indicates that 
the time has come to 
take advantage of the 
cheap labor of the 
south, and the prox- 
imity of the cotton 
fields, to operate more economically and 
evade surplus freight on raw material. 




WEAVING VELVET IN A SILK MILL. 



SCIEXCE, IXVEXTWX AXD DISCOVERY 



113 



The Xew England states still stand at 
the head in the manufacture of textile fab- 
rics. The first cotton mill in the United 
States was established at Beverly, Massa- 
chusetts, in 1787, and one of the first 
woolen mills at Newbury, only seven 
years later. Khode Island is only second 
to Massachusetts in its cotton mills and 
likewise stands high in woolen and silk 
manufacture. Pennsylvania leads in the 
middle states in cotton and silk. jSTew Jer- 
sey stands at the head of the list in the 
United States in silk manufacturing, with 
257 factories, and a capital invested ex- 
ceeding $20,000,000. There are 26,000 
persons employed and an annual value of 
output of $43,000,000. Among the south- 
em states, Xorth Carolina, South Carolina, 



Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi have im- 
portant cotton mills. 

The wool clip of the United States ap- 
proximates 270,000,000 pounds annually, 
from 36,000,000 sheep. It is in I^ew 
England and the eastern states that our 
American woolen goods are chiefly manu- 
factured. The value of the woolen manu- 
factures of Massachusetts alone is about 
$75,000,000 a year. E'early all the hemp 
from which our rope and other hemp prod- 
ucts are made, comes from the Philippines, 
which have a virtual monopoly of the 
world's product. The development of tex- 
tile industries is constant and there is an 
evident improvement apparent in the qual- 
ity and the artistic beauty of the materials 
produced. 




OPERATIVES IN A GREAT GARMENT FACTORY. 
All these sewing machines are driven by electricity. 



114 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



power: its development and transmission 



It is a primary truth in natural philos- 
ophy that no machine can give off more 
power than is given to it — that something 
cannot be generated out of nothing. Log- 
ical experimenters have long ago given up 
the futile effort to discover or invent some 
process for perpetual motion. Instead, 
mechanical ingenuity has devoted its in- 
quiry to the search for improvements in the 
application of povper and in the mechanism 
of it. The most perfect engine that can 
be imagined would waste some of the power 



naturally developed, by the loss in friction. 
The ideal toward which inventors strive is 
the reduction of friction, so that as much 
as possible of the power actually produced 
shall be used for the purpose intended, with 
as little waste as possible in the mechanism 
of the engine itself. 

It is the enormous waste of power in 
transmission that is rapidly causing the 
cable-railways of city streets to bs 3uper- 
seded by electric car lines. Electricity it 
one of the most economical of all powers tc 




INTERIOR OF A CABLE-RAILWAY POWER-HOUSE. 
Showing the cables passing over the wheels which move and stretch them. 



SCTEXCE, TXVEXTION AND DISCOVERY 



115 



transmit, because it is conducted through 
copper wires for long distances, with com- 
paratively slight loss of the current. The 
cable system, novel and picturesque as it 
seemed when the idea was first put into 
use, requires engines and boilers sufficient 



possible. This cable extends in a great 
circuit from the power-house, throughout 
the length of the line, over a large pulley^ 
and back by another parallel track of the 
line, to the power-house again, where it 
passes over the great wheels connected with 



•^ 






^^ 


lI!*,i^S 




di 


^^ 


N J: 


', - — ^ 


1^^ 


lb— .^P^ 


ih- " "'" 


fl 




1 1 


f ■ 


feK 


i Wbi 


■ ft; 


it.' 


h 


^ 


11 y 


-■/ ' _3 


■It: 


"■■"-■"" i— _ '''* 


L-^^Ef' 




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^^..Mm"''!^ ^-'Ml^ 




^H^" WSSmjO^ ^ 


f' 


^^^^^^^^^^H^^^^K^ '-^^^ '^ v't'^er 


1. 


^By^ ^ "" iiiiiiiir^ ' 


■ 11 



FIRING BY HAND-PURNACE ROOM OP THE CHICAGO PUBLIC LIBRARY. 



to generate an immensely greater power 
than the actual demands of the cars in serv- 
ice, because so much of the power is used 
in drawing the cables themselves. 

The cable railway of our city streets is 
operated as follows: In a narrow trench 
between the rails is a steel cable about an 
inch in diameter, resting on broad wheels 
over which it may be drawn as easily as 



the engines which give it its forward mo- 
tion. In order to cause the cable to move 
onward continuously at a regular rate of 
speed, an intricate device for keeping it 
stretched must be used, which increases the 
friction. It is evident that the weight of 
such a cable several miles long, and the 
friction which it generates in passing over 
the succession of wheels and pulleys, must 




coal ttom the chutes above is supphed^o me furnaces a ^^^.^.^^ 



SCIEXCE, IXVEXTIOy AXD DISCOVERY 



117 



require a great engine power to move it 
even were there no cars to be operated. 

Between the rails of the street car track, 
over the trench in which the cable lies, is a 
slot, likewise continuous. Through the bot- 
tom of the street car a clutching or gripping 
device extends, operated bj levers above. 
When it is desired to start the car, the grip- 
man moves the levers, thus grasping the 
cable below, and when it is desired to stop 
the car he releases the cable by the reverse 
motion of the levers. The cable itself is 
all the time moving. It is the identical prin- 
ciple by which a boy with a sled operates, 
in winter, when he grasps the trailing rope 
behind a farmer's wagon and is dragged 
along the ground at will. The frequent 
jerks and shifting strains upon the cables 
as cars start and stop, wear out the steel 
wires rapidly, and help to make the system 
an expensive one to operate. And yet in 



many cities cable railways have proven of 
great value for years prior to the introduo 
tion of electric lines. 

The immense power required for large 
manufacturing plants can hardly be real- 
ized by those who have not come in contact 
with such conditions. Great battleships 
and passenger liners in some instances hav(,i 
boilers and engines sufficient to develop 
30,000 or 35,000 horse-power, or as much 
as the entire power required for all thu 
machinery at the Chicago World's Fair di' 
1893. Great factories in some instances, 
too, require plants of almost as much ma|; 
nitude. The battery of boilers such as on<v 
may see in a modern manufactory on a 
large scale is an impressive sight. 

To some extent firemen have been elina 
inated in such institutions, by the inventiovi 
of automatic appliances for supplying coai 
for the furnaces, keeping the fires in good 




MAKING BINDER TWINE PROM MANILA HBMP. 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 




HARVEST TIME ON A NORTH DAKOTA WHEAT FARM. 



condition, and removing the ashes and cin- 
ders. Coal is dumped into bins above the 
furnaces, directly from vailwaj tracks. 
Chutes carry the coal when needed from 
the bins to the firebox, where it is distrib- 
uted by other automatic processes, and 
finally, automatic grate-bars, revolving 
upon axles at either end of the furnaces 
like an endless chain, keep the fires shaken 
down and the refuse removed as regularly 
and az perfectly as could be done by skilled 
firemen. Of course such a mechanical 
equipment requires the supervision of 
skilled engineers, but it is a great economy 
in labor for all that. 

.*8 ^ ^ 

UP-TO-DATE METHODS IN 
FARMING 

The methods of farming, that greatest 
of all American industries, have changed 
almost as much in late years as the methods 
in any of the mechanical and commercial 
industries. In the days when railways did 
not exist, and scientific farm implements 
had not been invented, the farmer was, in- 
deed, but a farmer, living an isolated life, 



raising his own food, and consuming his 
own products in large degree, in virtual in- 
dependence of his fellowmen. 

But now the farmer must be an intelli- 
gent business man as well if he is to make 
the highest success of his industry. It does 
not avail to buy expensive farming machin- 
ery, only to let it fall to destruction because 
it is given no care or protection from the 
elements. It is an extravagance to waste 
valuable pasture on inferior stock, which 
will bring but a low price in market, when 
good stock may be raised with greater ease 
and greater profit. 

Agricultural colleges, established all over 
the United States, have educated thousands 
of young farmers in scientific methods of 
agriculture, with profit to themselves and 
their enterprise. Agricultural newspapers, 
circulating everywhere, form a medium of 
exchange of opinions and information, thus 
spreading the educational spirit. The Agri- 
cultural Department of the United States 
Government has become an immense factor 
in building up the agricultural interests of 
the country by scientific experimentation 
and intelligent, practical work. It is this 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



119 




THRESHING MACHINES IN THE FIELD. 



Agricultural Department that has been an 
active influence in preserving the forests 
and water supplies of the land, in reclaim- 
ing the arid and desert land in the west by 
irrigation systems, and in finding crops 
adapted for the soil. 

Farming and stock raising are not left 
to the individual husbandman who culti- 
vates his own ground. Like the industries 
of handicraft, that have grown into great 
manufacturing enterprises, the promise of 
wealth in agriculture has attracted men of 
large ideas and large wealth. On the plains 
of the southwest and northwest, immense 
herds of cattle and sheep are grazing, owned 
by great corporations or energetic million- 
aires. In the Mississippi Valley great 



farms have grown in the possession of capi- 
talists, who conduct them as methodically 
as they would any other productive indus- 
try. In North Dakota, for instance, wheat 
farms of 20,000 acres are not uncommon. 
A farm of this size requires executive abili- 
ty, economy of administration and attention 
to details in order to assure profit, just as 
truly as would a cotton mill or a coal mine. 
Batteries of reapers sweep across the wheat 
fields at harvest time. Platoons of harvest 
hands work in the fields. And yet even 
such an enterprise demands skill and in- 
telligence and attention no more truly than 
does any one of our fertile farms, if the 
highest results are to be obtained from it 
for the owner. 




THE LARGEST POULTRY PLANT IN THE WORLD, IN THE STATE OP OfflO. 
Annual production 100,000 chickens. 73,000 dozen eggs. 



120 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 




Few people realize the extent to which 
the efforts of the U. S. Department of Ag- 
riculture has improved farming, fruit- 
raising, and stock-breeding interests in the 
United States. Through the systematic 
work of the numerous experimental sta- 
tions, and the issuance of a large amount 
of literary matter for gratuitous distribu- 
tion, productions of the soil have been 
greatly increased, with a corresponding pe- 
cuniary benefit to the people at large, but 
more particularly to the farmers. The de- 
partment now has in circulation something 
like 2,286 publications, treating of various 
subjects connected with the soil and its 
products, and the list is being added to 
continuously. Any person interested may 
obtain these publications without cost of 
any kind, even postage, by application to 
the senator or congressman representing 
the home district of the applicant, or by 
application direct to the Department of 
Agriculture. It sometimes happens, how- 
ever, that the supply of documents at the 
disposal of the department may be ex- 
hausted. When this happens they may be 
obtained from the Superintendent of Docu- 
ments, Government Printing Office, Wash- 
ington, D. C, on payment of a small fee, 
generally about 15 cents for each publica- 
tion. 

The list embraces pamphlets on the re- 
sults of Irrigation, Methods of Raising 
Various Crops, Fruit Culture, Orchard 
Cultivation, Fertilizing of Soil, Dry Farm- 
ing, Poultry Raising, Breeding and Care 
of Livestock, Injurious Insects and How to 
Get Rid of Them, Forestration, Butter and 
Cheese Making, Deer Raising for Profit, 
Road Making, Silos and Their Uses, and a 
lot of other subjects of vital interest to 
both farmers and consumers of food prod- 
ucts. Each subject is subdivided into vari- 
ous topics, so there may be a dozpn or 



SCIEXCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVEEY 



121 



more pamphlets treat- 
ing of A'arious phases 
of the same general 
subject. There are, for 
instance, thirty differ- 
ent publications cover- 
ing the important sub- 
ject of fertilization of 
the soil. An official list 
of all the publications 
issued by the depart- 
ment may be had on 
application as previous- 
ly mentioned, and it is 
then an easy matter to 
order by number such 
as are wanted. 

There is no doubt but 
that the work thus con- 
ducted by the Depart- 
ment of Agriculture has 
been of inestimable benefit to the country 
at large. One illustration will sustain this 
assertion. Two tracts of land immediately 




OPERATING A HARVESTi;:-- .^.._. 



TRACTION PLOW TURNING FIVE FURROWS AT ONE TIME. 



adjoining and of indentieally the same 
soil, wei*e selected and sown to wheat. 
One was cultivated according to the old 
methods, and the other 
according to the advice 
given by the depart- 
ment experts. The 
same seed was used. 
Tlie first tract produced 
25 bushels per acre, 
and the one cultivated 
hy department methods 
46 1-6 bushels per acre. 
"With wheat at 90 cents 
a bushel this made a 
difference of $19.05 per 
acre in the financial re- 
turns. The difference 
in methods occupied 
three days of additional 
time, which gave the 
farmer $6.35 a day for 
his extra work. 



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122 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 




GOVERNMENT MOISTURE TANKS. 
By lifting- and weighing these tanks at regu- 
lar intervals the amount of moisture necessary 
for plant growth is determined. 

Some of the record yields may be sum- 
med up as follows: wheat, 46 bushels to 



the acre ; oats, 80 bushels ; potatoes, 300 
bushels; alfalfa, 7 tons; corn, 89 
bushels; barley, 60 bushels; apples, 
1,000 boxes ($1,000) ; peaches, 1,500 
boxes ($1,500) ; pears, 1,500 boxes 
($1,500). Exact figures on cattle, hogs, 
poultry, etc., are not available, most of 
these being produced and marketed as 
side "crops." 

Through the efforts of the Depart- 
ment of Agriculture the land owner has 
been shown how to make his land more 
productive in money returns, and at the 
same time to keep it in a condition 
of ever-increasing fertility, instead of 
exhausting it year by year. One secret 
of the increase in wheat yield from a 
general average af 13 bushels an acre 
to over 20, may be found in the new 
method of disk harrowing the stubble 
immediately after the harvesting of the 
crop. It was found that the stubble 
remaining on the ground absorbed a 
great amount of moisture. By disk 
harrow^ing this loss of moisture is pre- 
vented, and the ground put into much 
better condition for the following crop. 




TRACTION PLOW TURNING TEN FURROWS AT ONCE. 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



123 



BURBANK, "THE WIZARD" 



Owing to his skill in creating new and 
valuable varieties of fruits, vegetables and 
flowers, Luther Burbank, of California, has 
well earned the title of "the botanical wiz- 
ard," by which he is now widely known. 
Some of the Avonderful results obtained by 
Mr. Burbank have been produced by the 
cross-breeding or hybridization of plants. 
In this way he produced the primus, or 
Logan berry, a cross between the raspberry 
and blackberry, thus 
securing an entirely 
new species of fruit 
which has brought 
large money returns to 
the berry growers of 
the west and north- 
west. Similar attempts 
to hydridize the straw- 
berry and raspberry 
failed. Another nota- 
ble result of INIr. Bur- 
bank's experiments is 
the pomato, a cross be- 
tween the potato and 
tomato. It took him 
five years to produce a 
plant which grows a 
fine white fruit, de- 
licious in taste when eaten raw, preserved, 
or stewed like an ordinary tomato. In the 
same way Mr. Burbank has propagated 
new species of apples, plums, pears, 
peaches, flowers and even nuts, one of his 
triumphs in the latter class being chestnut 
trees which at eighteen months of age yield 
crops of large, succulent nuts. 

In addition to scientific cross-breeding, 
Mr. Burbank has made a long study of the 
effects of the "survival of the fittest" by 
careful propagation of the soundest, hardi- 
est, and most productive plants. Taking 
for instance, an unusually beautiful flower, 



a notable specimen in a large field, he 
would reproduce flowers from the seed of 
this one specimen only, destroying the 
rest. The following season he would again 
select the seed from the finest plants, and 
so on through a succession of years until 
he had secured a perfect result. 

The cactus, in its natural state armed 
with fierce spines and worthless to man or 
beast, has been transformed into a spineless 




MACHINE -WHICH HUSKS AND SHELLS CORN, AND CUTS THE 
FODDER IN ONE OPERATION. 



plant bearing rich and nourishing fruit for 
man, and its stalks and leaves affording 
valuable food for horses and cattle. 

Mr. Burbank 's object lessons have been 
worth millions of dollars to the farmers of 
the United States. Aside from the produc- 
tion of new species by cross-breeding, he 
has shown the farmers how they may 
largely increase the yield of their lands, 
raise a finer quality of crops, and get more 
money for them, merely by careful system- 
atic selection of seed. It was formerly the 
practice to use any kind of corn for seed. 
Now the intelligent farmer selects only the 



124 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



finest ears and from these rejects the tip 
end kernels, and all others that are not 
plump and perfect. The result is mueli 
larger crops and a better grade of corn. 

HOW BINDER TWINE IS SECURED. 

An important item of expense in connec- 
tion with the harvesting of small grains, 
such as wheat, rye, barley and oats, is the 
binder twine used on the modern harvest- 
ing machines for the automatic tying of the 
bundles. Formerly this twine was made 
almost entirely of a fibre obtained from a 
species of banana tree, grown in the Philip- 




PLANT FROM WHICH TWINE IS MADE. 

pines, and known to the trade as "manila." 
Recently, however, the McCormick Har- 




DRYING THE SISAL FIBRE IN YUCATAN. 



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MACHINE FOR SEPARATING SISAL, FIBRE. 



vester Co. has introduced a new bind- 
ing twine which, owing to its relative 
cheapness, and the ease with which it 
is secured, has come into almost gen- 
eral use. This new twine is known as 
sisal. It is made from the fibre of the 
leaves of the henequen plant, which is 
extensively grown in Yucatan. The 
underleaves are cut off and passed 
through a machine which squeezes out 
the juice and other worthless material, 
the clear fibre being delivered at the 
other end of the machine. This fibre 
is then hung out in the sun to dry, 
and afterward spun into twine. 



IRRIGATION 



Irrigation projects, planned and paid for 
by the United States government, in the 
arid and semi-arid states, have brought 
under cultivation fully 500,000 acres of 
hitherto Avaste lands, and when fully com- 
pleted will make productive 2,700,000 
acres. These irrigating works will cost 
$70,000,000, an average of about $30 an 
acre. This cost is repaid to the govern- 
ment, by the settlers who take up the 
lands, in ten annual installments, after 
which the settlers own the irrigation plants 
and are under no expense except that of 
maintenance. 

The district in which irrigation projects 
are either completed or well under way em- 
braces Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, 
Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New 
Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, 
South Dakota, Utah, AVashington and Wy- 
oming. 

There are several methods of providing 





XRRIGATING A POTATO FIELD. 



MAIX LATERAL FOR SUPPLYING FURROWS. 

water for irrigation purposes. One is by 
direct diver.sion of a stream through lateral 
ditches. This sy.stem requires that the 
.stream be on a level, or slightly above, the 
land to be watered. Another is by pump- 
ing the water from wells, or from streams, 
into reservoirs. In this latter case there is 
the objection to the cost of pumping^ un- 
less motive power can be obtained by 
means of a waterfall. The most common 
source, and the cheapest in the end, is by 
tlie building of dams, which back up the 
water, forming huge reservoirs from which 
it is fed into a main canal. From tins 
canal the flow of water into lateral ditches 
is regulated by means of "gates." This is 
the method used almost exclusively in gov- 
ernment irrigation works. From the lat- 
eral ditches the settler cuts his own cr^s 
ditches. 



126 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



There is no set rule as to the amount 
of water to be delivered to the land owner. 
It depends upon the requirements of the 
locality, the nature of the soil and kind of 
crops cultivated. A sandy or loam soil will 
need more water than a clayey soil as it 
will soak away faster. Alfalfa needs more 
moisture in its early stages than almost any 
other crop. In Montana, Wyoming, and 
Idaho, as well as in parts of other states, 
water is usually delivered in continuous 



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MILE LONG ROWS OF IRRIGATED 

streams which for an average-size farm 
seldom exceed 80 miner's inches, or 2 cubic 
feet, per second. The supply ditches for 
the farms are accordingly small, except for 
the large holdings. 

In Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, Califor- 
nia, and to some extent in other states and 
territories, water is delivered to the user 
during short periods of time, with long in- 
tervals between when the supply is en- 
tirely shut off. 



In the citrus orchards of California the 
size of the streams delivered varies from 
30 to 60 miner's inches. (In southern Celi- 
fornia 50 miner's inches are equal to one 
cubic foot per second.) At Riverside, 
where the soil is a clay loam, the usual 
allotment is 30 inches for forty-eight hours 
once a month, or 30 inches for seventy-two 
hours every six weeks on a 10-aere tract. 
Around Pomona, where the soil is sandy, 
the usual head is from 50 to CO inches, the 
larger head being for a 
shorter time. 

On the diversified 
farms of Utah and Col- 
orado the supply ditch- 
es vary in capacity 
from 50 to 150 miner's 
inches. 

Recent investigations 
made by the U. S. Office 
of Experiment Stations 
have shown that the 
quantity of Avater 
which plants use forms 
but a small part of that 
which is diverted from 
streams for irrigation 
purposes. Large vol- 
umes are lost by absorp- 
tion and seepage in the 
earthen channels of 
canal systems. Similar 
occur in the ditches which supply 
farms, and a large part of the remainder 
is wasted in irrigating crops. The farmer 
is chiefly concerned in lessening the waste 
of water in his supply ditch and on his 
farm. In localities where water is scarce, 
the supply ditch should be made water- 
tight. This may be done by lining the 
channel with cement concrete, cement plas- 
ter, asphalt, heavy crude oil, or clay pud- 
dle. Flumes or pipes may also be used as 
a substitute for an earthen ditch. 



SCIENCE, IXVEXTION AND DISCOVERY 



127 



Plants will usually indicate by a change 
in color or by their general appearance 
whether they need water or when they 
liave been over-irrigated. Most field crops 
turn to a darker green when in need of 
water, and the leaves and stems show a 
tendency to droop or curl. The lower leaves 
assume a pale yellow. A crisp or dead ap- 
pearance in the lower leaves is one of the 
best indications that a plant needs water. 
Grain which has suffered from drought may 
mature, but the straw will be small and 
short and the kernels will be shrunken and 



inferior in quality. Alfalfa and similar 
crops have the appearance of cured hay. 
AVhere field crops are over irrigated the 
color of the foliage becomes a yellowish 
green and the plants have a sickly appear- 
ance. These indications vary with the 
quality of the soil, so that it is impossible 
to lay down fixed rules to govern the num- 
ber or frequency of irrigations. Only close 
observation for a number of years on the 
same farm will enable a person to tell by 
the appearance of the plants whether they 
need water or not. 



IRRIGATION OF THE NILE REGION 

BABBAOS AT ASSIOUT— 2.750 FEET LONG 




SOUTH OR UPSTREAM STDE OP THE DAM AT ASSOUAN, FBOJI WEST BANK. 

Total length, 1^4 miles; maximum height above foundation, 130 feet; difference of water level above and 
below, 67 feet. Total weight of masonry, over 1,000,000 tons. 



The monumental dam at Assouan, which 
is bv far the greatest achievement of its 
kind in ancient or modem times, forms a 
reservoir in the Xile valley capable of stor- 
ing 1,000,000,000 tons of water, practically 
creating a lake more than 140 miles long. 
The foundation stone was laid by the Duke 
of Connaught on February 12, 1899. At 
times fifteen thousand men have been em- 
ployed, and work liaa gone on day and 



night. At other times, when the Xile was 
in flood, labor had to be suspended for sev- 
eral weeks. 

One gains a clearer idea of the magni- 
tude of the task by recalling the first step 
taken; that was, to divert the channel and 
excavate in the rocky river-bed a trench one 
hundred feet wide and as many feet deep, 
in which to lay a concrete foundation for 
the massive piers. 



128 



SCIEXCE, IXVEXTIOX AXD DISCOVERY 



At its best, and controlled, the ISTile is 
very generous, as befits the majesty of its 
three thousand miles. Joseph the Israelite 
drew some of his prosperity from it. Oii^ 
of the irrigation canals he planned for 
Pharaoh's people is still in use. But in 
most moods the 'Nile is a sullen and incon- 
stant stream, and even in the days vrhen 
Egypt was the granary of imperial Eome 



until, of recent years, the British recon- 
structed them. This work consists, in 
effect, of two brick arched viaducts cross- 
ing the Rossetta and Damietta branches of 
the Xile, having, together, 132 arches of 
16-feet-four-inches-span, which were en- 
tirely closed by iron sluices during the sum- 
mer months, thus heading up the water 







I 



THE GREAT DAJI AT ASSOUAX. 
Entrance to locks of navigation channel from the south. 



there seems to have been no comprehensive 
attempt to govern it. 

Xapoleon had a faint perception of the 
thing that needed to be done when he sug- 
gested a dam near Cairo. That, he real- 
ized, would double the cultivable area 
around the river's mouth. In the earlier 
portion of the 19th century two barrages 
were actually built at that spot by a French 
engineer — ^badly built, however, and useless 



level into the six main-irrigation canals be- 
low Cairo. In the simimer months the 
whole flow of the Nile is arrested and 
thrown, into the aforesaid canals. 

The most important of the works con- 
structed to enable the water stored up in 
the great reservoir to be utilized to the 
greatest advantage is the barrage across the 
Xile at Assiout, about 250 miles above 
Cairo, which was commenced by Sir John 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



129 



spans, 
sluice- 



Aird & Company in the winter of 1898, 
and completed in 1902. In general prin- 
ciple this Avork resembles the old barrage 
at the apex of the delta; but in details of 
construction there is no similarity, nor in 
material, as the old work is of brick and 
the new one is of stone. The total leng-th 
of the structure is 2,750 feet, or rather 
more than half a mile, and it includes 111 
arched openings of 16 four-inch 
capable of being closed by steel 
gates 16 fe3t in hight. 
The object of the 
Avork is to improve the 
perennial irrigation of 
lands in Middle -Egypt 
and the Fayoum, and 
to bring an additional 
area of about 300,000 
acres under such irriga- 
tion by throwing more 
water at a higher level 
into the great Ibrahim- 
ick Canal, the intake of 
which is immediately 
above the barrage. 

The total leng-th of 
the dam is about a mile 
and a quarter ; the maximum height from 
the foundation is about 130 feet; the 
difference of level water above and below, 
67 feet; and the total weight of masonry 
over 1,000,000 tons. Ifavigation is pro- 
vided for by a "ladder," of four locks, each 
260 feet long by 32 feet wide. As with 
the case of Assiout, the difficulties in dam 
construction are not in design, but in the 
carrying out of the works. When "rotten 
rock" in the bed was discovered. Sir Ben- 
jamin Baker frankly reported to Lord 
Cromer that he could not say what the 
extra cost and time involved by this and 



other unforeseen conditions would be, but 
that, however bad the conditions, the job 
could be done. He was told to go ahead 
Avith the work. 

The first channel was successfully closed 
on May 17, 1899, the depth being about 
30 feet and the velocity of the current 
about 1.5 miles an hour. In the case of 
another channel, the closing had to be 
helped by tipping in railway wagons them- 
3, loaded with heavy stones and bound 




THE NAVIGATION CHANNEL ENTRANCE LOCKS TROM THE NORTH. 

together with wire ropes, making a weight 
of about 50 tons — ^this gTeat mass being 
necessary to resist displacement by the tor- 
rent. These rubble dams were well tested 
when the high ISTile ran over them; and on 
work being resumed in ISTovember, after the 
fall of the river, water-tight sand-bag dams, 
or "sudds," were made around the site of 
the dam foundation in the still waters above 
the rubble dams, and pumps were fixed to 
lay dry the bed of the river. 

This was the most exciting time in the 
early stage of the operations, for no one 
could predict whether it would be possible 



130 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 




LOOKING TO THE EAST ALONG THE TOP OF THE 
DAM. 
Regulating gear for sluices to the right. 

to dry the bed, or whether the water would 
come pouring tlirough the fissured rocks in 
altogether overwhelming volumes. Twenty- 
four 12-inch centrifugal pumps were pro- 
vided to deal if necessary with one small 
channel; but, happily, the sand bags and 
gravel and sand embankments stavmched 
the fissures in the rock and the interstices 
between the great bowlders covering the 
bottom of this channel, and a couple of 
twelve-inch pumps sufiiced. 

AHMY OF WORKERS. 

The masonry of the dam is of local gran- 
ite, set in British, Portland-cement mortar. 
The interior is of rubble set by hand, with 
about 40 per cent of the bulk in cement 
mortar, four parts of sand to one of cement. 
All the face work is, of course, rock-faced 
ashlar, except the sluice linings, which are 
finely dressed. The maximum number of 
men employed on this dam was 11,000. 

OLD SYSTEM OF IRRIGATION. 

The old system of irrigation was little 
more than a high Nile flooding of different 



areas of land or basins surrounded by 
embankments. Less than a hundred years 
ago, perennial irrigation was first at- 
tempted to be introduced by cutting deep 
canals to convey the water to the lands 
when the Nile was at its low summer 
level. When the K^ile rose, these canals 
had to be blocked by temporary earthen 
dams, or the current would have wrought 
destruction. As a result, they silted up, and 
had to be cleared of many millions of tons 
of mud each year by enforced labor, much 
misery and extortion resulting therefrom. 

Moreover, the old canals and the dams at 
the delta barely touched the surface of 
Egypt's irrigation problem, the problem of 
avoiding drouth and making waste lands 
fertile. The great dams at Assouan and 
Siut, "inaugurated" in the summer of 
1903, go to the bottom of things in more 
than one sense of the word. 

At Assouan, near the First Cataract, 
nearly six hundred miles from Cairo, 
the Nile is a mile wide. The dam 
is a quarter-mile wider, a great granite 
wall that rises ninetv feet above the 




EARLY IRRIGATION IN EGYPT. 
Host primitive methods ot farming prevail. 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



13] 



level of low K'ile, and is sixty feet wide at 
the top. 

When the river is in flood, its waters 
gush through one hundred and eighty mas- 
sive sluice-gates. In autumn the sluice- 
gates are closed until the reservoir thus 
formed is full, ready to be distributed 
through canals and ditches over the agri- 
cultural land on either side. In April and 
A.usriist, when the water is most wanted for 



the crops, the supply in the lower river is 
increased from the reservoir. 

THE DAM AT SIUT. 

At Siut, about half-way between Assouan 
and Cairo, is a subsidiary dam a half-mile 
wide, with more than one himdred sluice- 
gates. Broadly speaking, the two reservoirs 
add $400,000,000 in land values to ths 
region covered by their operation. 



OLIVE CULTURE ON AN EXTENSIVE SCALF 



THE WORLD'S BIGGEST OLIVE ORCHAHD. 



The United States has no rival as far as 
climate and other resources are concerned. 
In the West India Islands which we have 
acquired, in Samoa, in the Hawaiian 
Islands, and in the Philippines, can be 
produced every tropical product that has a 
commercial value. Hereafter, we may grow 
our own spices and tropical fruits, our 
coffee and our hemp, and numerous other 
peculiarly tropical productions, which are 
not produced in the United States proper. 

RESOURCES OF THE TTNTTED STATES IN 
CLIMATE AND SOIL. 

In our own country, between the Atlantic 
and the Pacific, from British America on 
the north, to Mexico on the south, we have 
such a variety of resources from the soil 
and the mountains, from the forests and 
the plains, as to make us almost absolutely 
independent of the world's markets, if by 
chance we should be isolated from them. It 
is true that no part of the United States is 
in the tropics, yet in Southern California 
and Florida the balmy climate makes the 
cultivation of most of the more important 
tropical plants possible. 



In Southern California is located the 
largest olive orchard in the world. There 
are also others that outclass the olive 
groves of the Mediterranean in size. Only 
in a limited area of central and southern 
California, and in 'Ne^ Mexico and 
Arizona, can the olive be produced, in this 
country. It is quite certain, therefore, 
that there will not be an over production. 
ORIGIN OF THE OLIVE IN CALIFORNIA. 

Olive orchards in Italy are looked upon 
as perpetual fountains of wealth. It is 
more than a hundred years since the first 
of these orchards was planted by the Span- 
ish mission fathers of California, who did 
so much to influence the early industries 
and life of that state when it was a part 
of Spanish Mexico. The success of their 
olive-tree cultivation proved the adapta- 
bility of the climate, and ever since that 
time the industry has been steadily grow- 
ing. From the olives that are grown in 
California is produced from 24 to 31 per 
cent of oil. They are richer and more 
palatable, when pickled, than are the im- 
ported green olives from Italy. The de- 



132 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



mand for ripe olives is steadily on the 
increase, and in the year 1902 it was about 
30 per cent more than in the preceding 
year. 
THE OLIVE TEEE MORE VALUABLE 
WHEN OLD. 

The older the olive tree becomes, the 
more valuable it is to its owner, because of 
its prolific bearing. The wood of olive 
trees is highly prized by cabinet makers, 
for it is exceedingly hard and susceptible 
to a high polish. 
THE WORLD'S BIGGEST OLIVE ORCHARD. 

This mammoth entei'prise is located at 
Sylmar, twenty miles from Los Angeles, 
California, in a beautiful amphitheater in 
the Sierra Madre mountains. 

The ranch contains more than 120,000 
trees. There are 1,200 acres under cultiva- 
tion, covering an area whose greatest length 
is three miles and whose breadth is two and 
one-half miles. Each acre contains 110 
trees, and it is estimated will produce 2,000 
gallons of olives yearly for the next 20 
years. This amount will make 250 gallons 
of oil, which, at $2 per gallon, will make 
the revenue $500 per acre. There are forty 
miles of roads within the ranch. Two hun- 
dred and ten thousand dollars has been in- 
vested in the orchard and $15,000 in the 
factory. The crop of 1903 is valued at 
$225,000. 

TEH TIMES LARGER THAN SPAIN'S 
GREATEST. 

Although the olive tree has been culti- 
vated for more than 4,000 years, and olives 
have formed a staple food of some of the 
oldest races of earth, yet the young orchard 
at Sylmar is ten times as large as the 
largest olive orchard in Spain or the Holy 
Land. 



One hundred and fifty men are employed 
in gathering the olives in harvest time, 
which is throughout the months of Novem- 
ber, December, January, and on into Feb- 
ruary. The olive berries frequently weigh 
down the branches until they touch the 
ground. Two hundred pounds is a good 
average day's pick, at an average wage of 
about $1.50 per day. 

The Sylmar ranch was planted about 
1894, and the trees yield about 50 pounds 
of olives each. An olive tree does not come 
into bearing until it is four or five years 
of age. As the trees are supposed to live 
4,000 years, indeed, some of the trees on 
the Mount of Olives, in the Holy Land, are 
known to be over 3,000 years old — an olive 
orchard may be reckoned on permanently. 

BILLOWY EXPANSE OF SILVER GRAY. 

The big olive orchard at Sylmar presents 
a vision of surpassing loveliness. As far as 
the eye can reach it is one sweeping, bil- 
lovvy expanse of silver gray. The olive 
trees themselves are not unlike willows in 
their graceful, somewhat drooping, sil- 
houette. The trees are arranged in orderly 
rows, and near at hand one sees the pecul- 
iarly beautiful shade kno^\^l as olive green, 
which becomes a silver gray whenever a 
breath of wind discloses the under side of 
the leaf. In the distance the perspective 
reduces the size and assembles the trees, 
producing an effect much like a waving 
field of grain. 

The earth on the surface is always care- 
fully pulverized, and, consequently, the 
water has been drawn up by capillary at- 
traction. There is a strong underground 
seepage from the surrounding hills. 



SCIEXCE, IXVEXTIOX AXD DISCOVERY 



m 



MAMMOTH SICILIAN OLIVE TBEES. 

In Sicily, olive trees have been kno^ii to 
attain enonuons size, one having gi'own to 
the dimensions of 2G feet in circnmference, 
with an expanse at the top of fnllv 150 
feet. 

Italy produces, annually, 70,000,000 gal- 
lons of olive oil; Spain, 23,000,000, and 
the United States, about 7,000,000. 

The olive berry always grows on new 
wood, and, in order to increase the yield, 
the tree is "cut back" and new wood spring-s 
out, which bears fruit the second year. It 
is said that the roots of the olive tree extend 
as far into the earth as the branches rise 
above the soil. 

GATHERING THE CROP. 

The olives are carefiilly gathered in can- 
vas buckets made for this purpose, and are 
brought to the factory in spring wagons, to 
keep them from bruising. The berries are 
gathered when ripe, although "ripe" olives 
are frequently ''green" in color. After thev 
reach the factory the olives are graded into 
"ones," "twos," or "threes," according to 
size. They are then put into a solution of 
one pound of lye to ten gallons of water. 
This takes out the bitterness. Here they 
remain a week to ten days. Then the lye 
is soaked out by fresh running water, and 
if they are for table use they are put into 
a solution of brine, where they remain per- 
manently until bottled up or shipped away. 

The olives to be used for oil are gath- 
ered from the tree a good deal riper than 
those used for the table. The oil is ex- 
tracted by a series of "crushers" and hy- 
draulic presses, which are composed of 
materials that will not absorb odors, stone 
and metal being used as much as is possible. 



CRUSHING AND PRESSING. 

In Italy the olive fruit is crushed and 
pressed by a simple process. A platform 
of strong masonry is made about 40 inches 
high and ten feet long, the surface of the 
top being slightly hollowed. At the center 
a strong, vertical, wooden axis is erected, 
to which is affixed, at right angles to the 
platform, a millstone about 12 inches broad 
and weighing about 1,600 pounds. By 
means of a shaft and yoke beam, a donkey, 
or ox, slowly moves the stone around. The 
olives are emptied into the mill trough and 
crushed to pulp, one attendant constantly 
turning the mass over with a shovel. In 
half an hour about 200 pounds can be thus 
ci-ushed. The thick pulp is then put into 
soft flat rush baskets, each having only a 
small aperture in the top, and these are ar- 
ranged in the press in layers, one above 
another, up to 15, mouth upwards. 
Wooden boards are then laid across, and 
then comes the strong cross beam of the 
press. To this is attached a strong wooden 
screw, worked by a lever in the hands of 
six or eight men, first slowly, then faster, 
and finally screwed home. The oil flows 
readily, and runs through a shoot into a 
hogshead below, fllled up to four-fifths of 
its capacity with water, so that as the oil 
runs in, the heavy impurities may be de- 
posited and the soluble matter taken up 
by the water, leaving the oil to collect on 
the surface. The pulp is thus passed 
through the mill, two, three or four times, 
and the final residue, amounting to about 
70 per cent of the original fruit, is mostly 
sold to the large oil works, where it is 
worked over again. Formerly, it was dis- 
posed of to the bakers for heating their 



134 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



HOW RUBBER IS MADE TO-DAY 



But two centuries have elapsed since 
rubber was known onlj as a curiosity; to- 
day it is in common use in nearly every 
industry and household. 

THE PROCESS OF KNEADINa 

The system by which crude rubber is 
brought down to merchantable condition, is 
a simple method of kneading by steam 
rollers. Eirst the crude rubber is soaked 
in hot water for several hours. After this 
operation, it is cut up into pieces of con- 
venient size and run through a washer, 
which is a machine equipped with heavy 
corrugated steel rollers. Here it passes 
through and through until it is crushed and 
mangled, all the time being washed clean 
of bugs and other impurities, that get into 
the rubber tree. The rubber is very sticky 
and after the washer has completed its 
work, one sees nothing but a sticky mass in 
long sheets. These are allowed to dry and 
then are run through heavier rollers. 

THE PROCESS OF MIXING. 

After this process the rubber is run 
through the "mixers," which consist of 
large hollow steel rollers having steam 
pipes inside of them, to furnish heat in the 
operation of mixing, and also a set of water 
pipes by which the rubber may be cooled 
when necessary. Through the rollers the 
rubber passes. So adhesive is it that it 
sticks fast to the rollers and has to be con- 
stantly cut off by means of a sharp knife, 
and thrown back, for another rolling. Great 
power is needed for this process because the 
sticky mixture retards the rollers. When 
the kneading is all but completed, a color- 
ing compound is added to the mass to give 



it the tint desired in certain kinds oi uses 
for which it is intended. 

THE PROCESS OF COMPRESSINa 

After this, the rubber is run through four 
polished steel rollers, one above the other, 
and here it gets its proper thickness. These 
rollers or "calenders" are used also for 
crushing the rubber into cotton ducking, 
for making rubber cloth, etc. 

Manufactured rubber goods are made by 
this method of compression instead of by 
melting and pouring into molds. 

THE PROCESS OF VULCANIZING. 

Charles' Goodyear discovered the process 
of vulcanizing rubber, a process which con- 
sists in changing the chemical composition 
of rubber by heat, whereby its sticky and 




YOUIJG RUBBER TREE. 



SCIEXCE, TXVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



135 



elastic properties are removed and the rub- 
ber is given greater durability. This 
process consists in submitting the rubber 
to a great pressure under beat, by means 
of hydraulic presses. Generally, about 
2,000 pounds are brought to bear, and the 
presses are connected with steam so as to 
secure the desired heat. 

ODD METHOD OF VULCANIZING RUBBER 
BELTS. 

An odd method is employed to vulcanize 
rubber belts. A stretcher is used to take 
the stretch out of the belts. This is made 
up of two sets of heavy clamps, and a g-reat 
hydraulic ram which exerts a pressure of 
2,000 poimds to the square inch. In this 
manufacture, the belting has already been 
made by pi-essing the rubber into the cotton 
duck. This is now cut into strips of de- 
sired length, and the strips are laid, one 
over the other, until the thickness of the 



desired belt is obtained. Then a strip of 
thin, pure rubber is wrapped about the 
several folds. The whole belt may then be 
put into a steam press and vulcanized. 

RUBBER HOSE. 

When rubber hose is made, a rubber tube 
is first slipped over a mandrill, and cotton- 
duck stripping is wrapped about it until 
the desired thickness is attained. Then, a 
thin sheet of rubber is rolled about it all. 
This is covered with strips and sent to the 
vulcanizing press. The press consists prin- 
cipally of an iron pipe which is thrust into 
the hose. Steam is admitted to the pipe 
and the hose is heated. When the process 
is over, compressed air is blown between 
the hose and the pipe to remove it. Eire- 
men's hose, with its cotton outside, is made 
by drawing a rubber tube within the cotton 
tubing, and then the whole is charged with 
steam. 




RbBBER TREE IN U. S. BARRACKS Kiif WEgX. OV£R 100 TiilARS OLD. 



SCIENCE, IXVEXTIOX AND DISCOVERY 



137 



ORANGE GROVES AND THEIR PRODUCTS 



Thanks to the serai-tropical climate of 
our favored southern states, particularly 
Florida and Southern California, we are 
enabled to have a current supply of luscious 
fruits and vegetables of subtropical charac- 
ter which only a few years ago were con- 
sidered as genuine delicacies of some rarity, 
instead of being commonly found in the 
markets as they are now. In addition to 
these newly developed regions of our own 
country, commercial enterprise of late years 
has placed Central America, Jamaica and 
certain others of our neighbors in the Carib- 



bean Sea under tribute, for still further 
tropical delicacies, and now the volume of 
trade in such foods has become very great. 
Bananas, for instance, come to us in im- 
mense shipments, the year round, from 
Honduras by way of New Orleans, and 
from Jamaica by way of Philadelphia and 
Boston. Our pineapple supply is chiefly 
from the "West India Islands, although 
Florida sends an increasing crop northward 
every year, and the Hawaiian Islands have 
begun to contribute their quota by way of 
the Pacific coast. 




Copyright 



by Detroit Photographic Co. 

PICKING ORANGES IN A CALIFORNIA GROVE. 



138 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



The orange production of the country is 
multiplied many times since the possibili- 
ties of California began to be realized. 
Florida still supplies large quantities of the 
choicest fruit from the Indian River or- 
chards, but the area devoted to the industry 
is not increasing greatly. In California, 
hov?ever, the increase is very rapid and 
even young readers can surely remember 
within their own knowledge a time when 
the golden fruit was by no means as com- 
monly seen in every town and village as it 
is now. Although we usually associate the 
orange groves of California with the south- 
ern part of the state, as a matter of fact 
they are by no means confined to this vicin- 
ity. Central California indeed, from Sac- 
ramento north, has some of the choicest and 
largest of the orange orchards, and the pro- 
duction in that part of the state rivals if it 
does not exceed, the more famous regions 
around Los Angeles and San Diego. 

It is difficult to imagine any horti- 
cultural scene more beautiful than an 
orange grove in full bearing. Citrus trees 
have a foliage of a peculiarly brilliant green 
and the golden fruit itself, glittering among 
the leaves, brightens the picture with a 
vivid color which justifies the admiration 
and interest always excited. Oranges are 
shipped east from California every day in 
the year, the smallest number of carloads 
in any one day being perhaps half a dozen, 
in the months of September and October. 
The annual harvesting of the crop begins 
about the middle of !N"ovember, and is at 
its highest from January to March. In 
those months the average shipment is over 
250 carloads a day, and the industry affords 
employment to a small army of pickers and 
packers. It is one of the corner-stones of 
the prosperity of the state. The product 



averages about half a carload to the acre 
of bearing trees throughout the state, and 
as the trees grow older this average in- 
creases. The groves vary in size from ten 
acres to forty, the latter area being all that 
one man can take care of with the help of 
one farm hand. Less than ten acres can 
not be depended upon for a sufficient in- 
come, though there are instances of five-acre 
tracts that have, through careful cultiva- 
tion, yielded large returns. The land costs 
all the way from $100 to $300 an acre, bare 
of trees. An orange orchard in good bear- 
ing is worth approximately $1,000 an acre, 
and the chances are that it will have cost 
its owner a large part of that sum, in in- 
vestment, interest and period of waiting. 
But the returns from the industry justify 
that high valuation. The majority of the 
well-managed orange orchards produce a 
profit annually of from $125 to $175 an 
acre. 

The citrus fruits were introduced into 
California more than a century ago, by the 
Spanish mission fathers who brought them 
from Mexico and Spain. If they could 
return to-day to the scene of their labor, 
they would see a wonderful change in the 
industry. Cultivation for export was not 
attempted until early in the seventies, and 
even as late as 1886 the total export product 
was only 150,000 boxes, or 500 carloads. 
In the years from 1885 to 1895 a vast 
amount of planting took place and the trees 
are now all coming into fruitfulness. The 
crop of 1900 was 18,000 carloads, or 6,000,- 
000 boxes, of which about 85 per cent was 
oranges and 15 per cent lemons. The 
oranges are largely marketed through 
mutual associations, formed to share the 
expense of maintaining agencies in the 
eastern markets, and to obtain the most 



SCIEXCE, IXVEXTIOX AXD DISCOVERY 



139 



favorable prices for them. These associa- 
tions are organized in the different orange- 
producing districts, and they have ware- 
houses where the crop is received, sorted 
and packed for shipment. The wagon- 
loads of fruit are poured into hoppers from 
which inclined tin troughs extend in various 
directions. The oranges are sorted bv size, 
automatically, as they are shaken over the 
hoppers and fall through holes into the 
troughs, much as coal is screened for ship- 



ment. The small oranges roll gently down 
the incline to one box, those of the next size 
to another, and so on till the sorting is 
completed and each box is filled with fruit 
of uniform size, carefully wrapped by the 
deft-fingered girls who find profitable em- 
ployment in this work. Thence the boxes 
are delivered to the railways for shipment, 
and ultimately they find themselves in the 
town and city markets throughout the 
country, ready for any purchaser. 



^^^^^^^^^^^f^I^^Ik' ji^lE^^^I^^^H^^^^I 


' 'M^ «. h^kw^^'^^^^W-n 


■|^^^|cr 


toif' 







Photographic Co. 

SORTING AND PACKING ORANGES FOR SHIPMENT. 



140 



SCIEXCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



COFFEE, TEA AND CHOCOLATE 



The tropics and the orient have given to 
mankind three beverages now of world wide 
use. Coffee, tea and chocolate are known in 
every land, and varying in popularity each 
has its loyal adherents. Here in the United 
States coffee very much exceeds the others 
in popularity, with tea second and chocolate 
far in the rear. England is a nation of tea 
drinkers, with little favor given to coffee. 
In fact critics declare that it is hard to get 
a cup of good coffee in Great Britain. The 
English retort with, perhaps, equal truth, 
that it is difficult to obtain a cup of good 
tea in the United States. Holland is the 
country where the best chocolate is found, 
thanks to the Dutch 
colonies of the East In- 
dies, where there is 
large production of the 
bean from which it is 
prepared. France of- 
fers coffee as its favorite 
beverage, with chocolate 
and tea following in 
succession. It is in 
France that adultera- 
tion of coffee has been 
carried to the highest 
extent, and sometimes 
even in the best res- 
taurants it is hard to 
trace the real coffee 
taste in the beverage 
offered. The Russians 
are the greatest of all 
tea drinkers, obtaining 
their supply chiefly by 
caravans into Siberig 
from the Chinese prov 



inces where the best crop is produced. The 
Eussian samovar or tea urn is perpetually 
alight in every household of the empire, and 
tea is served not only at every meal but to 
every caller between meals and at all sorts 
of surprising occasions. Even a business 
call at bank or office is almost certain to 
bring the offer of a glass of scalding tea, to 
be taken while the errand is explained. 

The range of coffee culture extends over 
almost the whole of the tropical belt of the 
globe. The plant seems to bear greater cli- 
matic extremes than most members of the 
vegetable kingdom, and thrives in localities 
differing as much as thirty degrees in aver- 




LARGEST COFFEE-ROASTING PLANT IN THE WORLD, 



SCIEXCE, TXVEXTIOX AXD DISCOVERY 



141 



age temperature. It is interesting to note 
that in many countries -where the Coffoea 
Arabica, the coffee of commerce, has been 
introduced, indigenous varieties of the 
coffee plant have been discovered. In 
Brazil, for instance, at least sixteen species 
are found growing in a wild state. The 
limit of average productiveness is about 
thirty years. After that time the trees may 
continue to live and gTOW, but they yield 
little or no fruit. In Java coffee trees 




COFFEE YARD NEAR JALAPA, MEXICO. 

planted nearly a hundred years ago are said 
to be in existence, being now some forty 
feet high with trunks a foot in diameter, 
but they grow entirely wild and produce no 
berries. On an average trees are replaced 
on the plantations every twenty years, and 
this process of replanting goes on con- 
stantly. 

Coffee grows best on the uplands, usually 
on mountain sides, at an elevation of from 
1,500 to 4,500 feet above the level of the 
sea. The trees are raised from seeds in 
nurseries, and transferred to their final 
positions when about a year or eighteen 
months old. The plants are usually set at 
intervals of eight or ten feet. They begin 
to bear at the age of three or four years and 



at six years may be said to be in full bear- 
ing. Taking one year with another, a tree 
in full bearing produces from two to three 
pounds per annum. The average diameter 
of the ti-unk in full-bearing trees is about 
the size of a man's wrist. They bear a pro- 
fusion of dark green glossy leaves, and the 
fruit or berry forms on the woodj' stems 
usually at the base of these leaves. 

The berry, when ripe, is red in color, and 
much resembles a large cranberry or medi- 
um sized cherry The two 
beyns lie within, face to face, 
and surrounding them are five 
successive layers of skin and 
pulp, covering and protecting 
the beans. Picking begins in 
Java in January and lasts for 
three or four months. The 
chief part of the Ceylon crop 
is gathered from April to July. 
A small crop, chiefly young 
coffee, is picked from Septem- 
ber to December. In Brazil 
they commence gathering crops 
in April or May, and work continues until 
September. "VTomen and children are large- 
ly employed in gathering the fruit, carrying 
it from the trees in baskets to the place 
where the preparation of the berry for mar- 
ket commences. 

After the berries have been gathered, the 
first operation to which they are treated is 
called "pulping." This means to remove 
the outer covering of skin and pulp from 
the beans themselves. The berries may be 
treated while in the soft state, or they may 
Ije permitted to dry, after which the dried 
husk is removed by a machine. When this 
process is chosen, the berries are spread 
upon drying-grounds of stone, mortar or 
cement, where they stay until the heat of 



142 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



the sun prepares them for the machine. It 
is a similar machine, differing only in de- 
tails, which is used when the berries are to 
be treated in the soft state. Successive 
cleansings, washings and dryings finally 
bring the coffee into a condition for ship- 
ment to the markets, thousands of miles 
from the plantations where it is raised. 

Coffee as a commercial staple is naturally 
inseparable from coffee as a popular bever- 
age. Amsterdam was for many years the 
center of the coffee trade, owing to the fact 
that nearly all the coffee of commerce came 
from the Dutch East 
Indies. With the rise 
of coffee cultivation in 
Brazil, the West Indies, 
Central America, Mexi- 
ico, Ceylon, India and 
Liberia, the Dutch lost 
their control of the 
trade, and New York 
became one of the most 
important coffee ports. 
The United States con- 
sumes more than one- 
third of all the coffee 
exported from the pro- 
ducing countries. Out 
of a total annual world 
production of 750,000 
tons, the United States 
takes about 280,000 
tons annually, of which nearly three-fourths 
is the product of Brazil. 

In Abyssinia and Ethiopia, where the 
coffee plant is found both wild and in a 
cultivated state, coffee seems to have been 
used as a beverage from time imme- 
morial. In those remote regions the Arabs 
are said to have first tasted the fragrant 
draught, and to have brought some of the 



precious beans into their own country to- 
ward the beginning of the fifteenth century. 
The Mohammedan pilgrims who flocked an- 
nually to Mecca tasted the delicious bever- 
age, and carried back coffee beans in their 
saddle-bags to all parts of the globe profess- 
ing the faith of Islam. Coffee overran 
Egypt and reached Constantinople, where 
in 1554 the first coffee house in Europe was 
established. Nearly one hundred years later 
the first coffee house in London was estab- 
lished, in 1652, by the Greek servant of an 
English merchant who had brought some 




DRYING TEA IN CEYLON. 

coffee with him from Smyrna. Within a 
few years Marseilles, Paris and London 
had numerous cafes, and coffee drinking 
was becoming common in England and 
France. During the eighteenth century it 
spread all over Europe, although the enor- 
mous prices of the berry restricted the prac- 
tice to the wealthier classes. 

For more than fifty years after the in- 



SCIEXCE, IXTEXTIOX AXD DISCOVERY 



143 



troduction of the beverage into Europe, 
Arabia still furnished the entire coffee sup- 
ply of the world, a necessarily very limited 
quantity. Then the Dutch, early in the 
eighteenth century, appeared in the market 
with the product of Java, and a few years 
later the culture extended to the West In- 
dies and spread with wonderful rapidity. 
Next Brazil entered the field, overtaking all 
rivals, until now more than one-half of the 
coffee consumed in the world issues from 
her fields. Java holds second rank in the 
list of coffee producers, Ceylon follows 
third, and southern India, Central America, 
Sumatra, Porto Eico, Mexico, Liberia and 
Arabia contribute to the world's supply. 

The western hemisphere does not con- 
tribute commercially to the tea product of 
the world, although in our own southern 
states certain experiments have been made 
which suggest that good tea could be culti- 



vated, even though it might not be highly 
profitable. Japan, China, the island of 
Formosa, India, and Ceylon are the princi- 
pal tea producing countries. The tea plant 
is a species of camellia, bearing a thick and 
glossy leaf which when green has no tea 
flavor, or rather has a flavor very unlike the 
cured leaf known to us as tea. There is 
considerable variety in the mode of culti- 
vating, but the prevailing system is to plant 
in rows about six feet apart. Three or four 
plants are planted together in hills which 
are about three feet apart, and usually as 
they grow larger they fill nearly the whole 
original space left between the hills, thus 
making an almost continuous row. The 
plants are raised from the seed, and take 
from three to four years to mature suffi- 
ciently to yield the first crop. After that 
they are picked continuously for many 
years. 




GATHERING TEA IN CEYLON. 



144 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



During the winter and early spring, in 
the districts yielding the best variety of tea, 
the plants are covered with mats which 
serve the double purpose of protecting them 
first from cold which might injure the 
plants, and later from the sun which tends 
to make the leaf tough and injures the deli- 
cacy of the flavor. The first picking, which 
is considered the best, takes place in Japan 
the last of April or the beginning of May, 
the second about a month later, while the 
third, which is often omitted, particularly 
when prices are low, takes place usually 
during the month of July. Left to them- 
selves the plants would probably grow to 
a considerable height, but they are pruned 
and trimmed down so that they are seldom 
more than three or four feet high. This 
results in a large num- 
ber of small branches, 
producing small and 
tender leaves, which are 
the only ones sought 
for, although in rapid 
picking different sized 
leaves would naturally 
be takf^n. together with 
a considerable quantity 
of stems and other 
trash. Immediately up- 
on being picked, the 
leaves are taken to the 
buildings for the cur- 
ing processes. The flat 
baskets in which the 
tea is brought from the 
fields are placed over 
the steaming apparatus 
for a few seconds, the 
steam permeating the 
mass and wilting the 
This gives them 



the dark green color, and enables the leaf to 
be rolled and doubled up, so that there is less 
liability to crumble when fired. They are 
then thrown upon large paper pans beneath 
which a gentle coal fire is maintained. They 
are toasted here for several hours, during 
which they are constantly rolled and stirred 
with the hands, so as to make the leaf as 
compact as possible. The tea is then placed 
in large baskets to await the sorting pro- 
cess. 

The dried leaves are spread on a smooth 
tray before the sorters, who with a pair of 
chop-sticks dexterously pick out the stems 
and coarse leaves which are thrown aside as 
refuse. In the finer qualities they also sepa- 
rate the large from the small leaves, the 
latter being most highly valued. After the 




DRYING TEA BY A HOT BLAST. 



SCIEXCE, IXVEXTIOX AXD DISCOVERY 



145 




DELIVERING SUGAR BEETS AT THE FACTOKY. 



tea is thus sorted it is sifted to extract the 
dust and broken leaves, and packed to be 
sent to the market. 

At the shipping ports, where tea is pre- 
pared for export, there is a second process 
of toasting or refiring the tea, and an addi- 
tional cleansing, after which it is packed in 
chests lined with lead which is soldered and 
closed so as to be air tight. Then after nail- 
ing the boxes, covering them with matting 
or rattan, and labeling them, the tea is 
ready for the ships which carry it to the 
American or European markets. 

The methods followed in China are al- 
most the same as those of Japan. In some 
sections artificially flavored teas are pro- 
duced. Flowers are gathered from the jas- 
mine, and scattered over the tea, which ab- 
sorbs much of the fragrance and is highly 
favored by epicures. The brick tea, which 
goes overland to Russia by camel trains, is 
an inferior quality, composed of the dust 
and siftings, mixed with other tea of ordin- 
ary variety. This is consumed by the Rus- 
sian peasants. An enormous quantity of 
the finest grade of tea is taken by the con- 
noisseurs of the same country, who are con- 



sidered to be tEe most 
exacting of all the world 
in their choice of tea. 
Chocolate is produced 
in several of the West 
India islands, in Peru, 
Bolivia and Ecuador, 
and the Dutch East In- 
dies. It is a product 
of the cacao tree, which 
bears a large pod in 
which the coarse beans 
are formed out of which 
chocolate is made. 
These beans are dried, 
ground. Cocoa is a modified 
from the same substance. 



roasted and 
preparation 
Porto Rico is the chief island of the Carib- 
bean where chocolate is produced, and here 
is the principal source of the American sup- 
ply. Students of health and diet of late 
years have recog-nized that chocolate is one 
of the most valuable food products, and not 
merely a stimulating beverage of doubtful 
value to the health like tea and coffee. Ex- 
plorers and travelers now carry chocolate in 
condensed form as a valuable part of their 
commissaries. Soldiers find it in their 
rations, and invalids prize it as a food. 

BEET SUGAR AND CANE SUGAR 

When the K'ebraska farmer drives into 
the factory yard with his ton of beets, he 
brings with him about 280 pounds of pure 
sugar secreted in the roots. I^ature has 
been busy all summer with her apparatus 
of sunshine and rain, taking the elements 
of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen from the 
earth, air and deAV, putting them together, 
and storing up the sweetness in the little 
sacs she has made for the purpose in the 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



146 

beet-root ; and the great piles of brick and 
Hjortar, the groaning engines and the roar- 
ing furnaces, the pumps and pans of the 
sugar mill have been devised to extract 
sugar from the root. 

The older method was to grate the sugar 
beet to a pulp, press out the juice contain- 
ing the sugar, clarify it a little, and boil 
away the water, leaving the crystals behind. 
But in this way from forty to eighty pounds 
of all the sugar in the ton of beets went to 
waste, for no press, however strong, could 
squeeze out all the juice, and the sugar 
would lie hidden away in the little particles 
of pulp. So the crude method has been 
superseded by a more perfect one, with the 
result that greater factories have grown, 
farmers have planted larger fields of sugar 
beets, and the industry has become a factor 
of importance in national politics. 

"When the beets are brought in by the 
farmers, they are dumped into long 
trenches, V-shaped at the bottom, from ten 
to twenty feet wide and 
from six to ten feet 
deep, either covered 
with sheds or simply 
open ditches. At the 
bottom of each of these 
is another ditch, reach- 
ing downward, with 
perpendicular sides 
twenty to thirty inches 
deep, and having a 
curved bottom eighteen 
inches wide. This is 
a sort of flume, through 
which water will flow. 
All the ditches slope to- 
ward the factory, and 
meet in one larger 
ditch near it. Before 



the beets are thrown into the larger and 
upper trench, the smaller one is covered 
with short boards, laid across to prevent the 
beets falling into it. In these trenches or 
"silos" the beets are kept until needed. In 
warm weather they are covered with canvas 
or straw, and in cold weather with soil. 
When they are wanted in the factory, a 
stream of water is let into the upper end 
of the bottom ditch. The loose boards cov- 
ering it are raised, and the beets are allowed 
to fall into the swiftly-running stream be- 
low, and are floated along to the houses. 
The water serves the double purpose of 
carrying and washing the beets. 

At the end of the ditch the beets are 
caught by buckets arranged upon the rim of 
a large revolving wheel, which lift them out 
of the dirty water and deposit them in the 
washing machine. This is a large, wooden, 
auger-shaped affair, lying horizontally in a 
round iron tank through which clear water 
is flowing. The revolving auger pushes the 




SCREW ELEVATOR AT A BEET SUGAR FACTORY. 



SCIEXCE, IXVEXTIOX AXl) DlbCO\'ERY 



U'i 



beets forward, rolling and tumbling in the 
water, and finally deposits them clean, in 
the elevating apparatus which carries them 
to the very top of the building. Here they 
are deposited into an automatic weighing 
machine which weighs half a ton of them 
at a time, and drops the beets into a slicer, 
a large wheel covered with knives, which 
revolves among the beets and cuts them into 
long, thin, diamond-shaped slices. 

Immediately below the slicer, and upon 
the second floor of the f actor_\ _ is a group of 
wrought-iron tanks that look like upright 
steam boilers, each large enough to hold 




DIFFUSION BATTERIES. 

about 3,000 pounds of the slices. These 
communicate with each other by means of 
large pipes. The first is filled with slices 
and water is then let in from a tank above. 
This is allowed to stand while the second 
tank is filling. Then the valves are opened 
into the next tank, containing fresh slices, 
and fresh water running into the first tank 
under pressure, forces the water which has 
already absorbed some sugar, on into the 
next tank, where it becomes richer. And 
so on from tank to tank it progresses, al- 



ways tending to coax the sugar outside of 
the beet into the water. By a repetition of 
this process from tank to tank, the water 
gradually absorbs the sweetness from the 
beets and exhausts them of all the sugar to 
within one-tenth of one per cent. The ex- 
hausted slices are dropped from the tanks, 
and run through great rotary auger presses, 
and the partly-dried pulp is then shipped 
away for cattle feeding. 

The apparatus just described is called the 
diffusion battery, and when once started, 
fresh slices are supplied and juice is drawn 
off almost continuously. The juice is of a 
chocolate brown color, 
containing much organ- 
ic matter not sugar. It 
is run from measuring 
tanks into tall, cylin- 
drical vessels holding 
about 2,000 gallons. 
Here a thick lime so- 
lution is added, which 
takes out the coloring 
matter and other organ- 
ic matter. Xext comes 
a succession of boiling, 
filtering and clarifying 
processes, after which 
ihe fluid has become a 
moderately thick syrup ready to be boiled 
down to sugar. The boiling process is a deli- 
cate one, which must be handled with care 
in order to get the best results. The syrup is 
pumped up into vacuum pans, large cylin- 
drical bodies, some ten feet in diameter, 
with oval top and bottom. Great copper 
steam pipes are coiled inside, and a large 
air pump with an eighteen inch cylinder 
keeps up the high vacuum and removes the 
evaporated water so that boiling down goes 
on rapidly, and at a very low temperature. 



148 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 




^^^2jh4Q^ 



The sugar-boiler watches the mass through 
glass windows set in the sides of the pan, 
and when the small grains begin to appear, 
"feeds" them by adding fresh syrup until 
they are of the required size. When the 
grade is right and the water is evaporated 
suj0ficiently, the steam 
is shut off, the pump 
stopped, a valve is open- 
ed at the bottom of the 
pan, and the whole mass 
is allowed to run into 
the tanks below. 

The syrup now looks 
about like dark molasses 
thickened with granu- 
lated sugar, and is so stiff 
that it will just run. 
This mass is drawn off 
into large whirling 
drums called centrifugal 
machines. These have 
their sides perforated 
with small holes, and are 
lined with gauze. The 
sugar rises up along the sides of the drums 
as they whirl, as water will in a revolving 
pail, and the molasses is thrown out of the 
holes in the sides, while the sugar too large 
to get through, remains sticking to the 



gauze. The sugar is washed by directing a 
spray of cold water and air against it as it 
whirls, and a little bluing is added to give 
brilliancy. The machine is then stopped, 
and the sugar, which is now white and moist, 
is dropped from the bottom of the machine, 



H^^ 









THE CENTRIFUGALS. 



CARBONATORS IN A BEET SUGAR MILL. 



and conveyed to a large horizontal revolving 
cylinder heated by steam and called the 
"granulator." It is here dried, and the fine 
dust of sugar contained in the granulator 
is drawn out by a suction blower. The 
sugar passes through screens at the end of 
the granulator, which removes the large 
lumps, and thence to the bags for market. 
The molasses thrown off at the centrifu- 
gals is mixed with fresh syrup and boiled 
again, or is boiled alone and passed through 
the centrifugals, and the brown sugar re- 
sulting is refined by mixing with fresh 
syrup. A careful chemical control is kept 
upon the whole house. The laboratory has 
been called by one of the principal manu- 
facturers, the heart of the factory. Here 



SSCTEXCE, TXVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



149 




everything is tested — beets, juice, syrups 
and boiled sugars. Every pound of sugar 
entering the house is knowTi from analysis 
and every loss is located and accounted for. 
In the laboratory are tested also the coal, 
the limestone, and the coke, the amount of 
ash in the raw sugar, and the value of soils 
and fertilizers. The factories run day and 
night, seven days in a week, stopping only 
to clean up or in case of an accident. And 
the sugar rolls out from 
each factory at the rate 
of thirty, fifty or one 
hundred tons a day. 

If a Michigan chem- 
ist realizes his expecta- 
tions, saw mills in the 
pine forests of the north 
may become active com- 
petitors of the Louisi- 
ana sugar plantations. 
ITe declares that he can 
make granulated sugar 
out of sawdust, and 
that he can do it cheap- 



er than Cuba, China, 
Germany or any other 
country can possibly 
produce it. 

The Louisiana sugar 
plantations produce less 
than one-fifth of all the 
sugar consumed in the 
United States, which is 
the chief reason for the 
rapid stimulus of beet- 
sugar production. In 
our Louisiana cane 
fields the harvest begins 
early in October. The 
negro field hands first 
strip the cane of its 
leaves with the dull side of the knife, and 
then the tops are cut off as far down as the 
experienced cane cutter pleases and the ma- 
turity of the cane will permit. For while 
the sugar planter wants every inch of cane 
which will yield up sugar, he doesn't want 
to grind and handle an inch more than is 
necessary. The field hands begin work at 
daybreak, and cut enough cane during the 
day to keep the mill supplied for the suc- 




DEFECATING PANS. 



150 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



ceeding day and night. The cane is first 
weighed while on the wagon, and then 
dumped in the cane-shed, which is an open, 
heavily built wing of the sugar house. From 
the shed to the mill extends a traveling plat- 
form or conveyor. Colored women pick up 
the cane and spread it on the moving slats 
which carry it to the mill to be crushed. 
The roller mill is a ponderous piece of ma- 
chinery, massive in all its parts, for sugar 
cane has a tough, hard skin, and cannot be 
crushed by tender methods. Sometimes 
nine rollers in succession are used to com- 
plete the crushing process. In the interme- 
diate stage the crushed cane is called 
bagasse. When it is squeezed almost dry it 
is carried to the boiler room, for fuel, or it 
may be used for fertilizer. 

"When the cane is crushed, the juice runs 
down, a greenish, sticky liquid, through a 
strainer, to a vat from which it is dumped 
to the clarifiers. Lime and heat are used 
in this process, just as in making beet 



sugar. The juice is boiled in a succession 
of open kettles, first to a syrup and then to 
sugar, being frequently skimmed of the im- 
purities which rise to the top in the form 
of a scum, and are usually made into rum. 
When the tests show that the proper den- 
sity has been reached, the heavy syrup is 
dipped into cooling-vats of wood, where the 
sugar is crystallized. Of late years vacuum 
pans and centrifugal machines have been 
introduced in the largest cane-sugar fac- 
tories, like those used in beet-sugar making. 
Enormous quantities of sugar are made 
in Cuba, Porto Eico, and the other West 
India Islands; in the northern countries 
of South America ; and in the Dutch East 
Indies. Hawaii, too, has a large sugar in- 
dustry. Germany and France are leaders 
in the beet-sugar industry; Russia and 
Austria are active in the same direction, 
and our own American farmers and sugar- 
makers are united in the development of 
the industry in this coimtry. 



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GUTTING, STRIPPING AND HAULING SUGAR CANE. 



SCIENCE, IXVEXTIOX AM) DlSCOVEin' 



15J 



AUTOMOBILES AND THEIR DEVELOPMENT 



Tlie age has arrived Avlien the horse as 
a means of power for general traction is 
well on the wane. While it is not intended 
hy this statement to convey the idea that 
the time will come when hlorses will no 
longer be used to draw vehicles, neverthe- 
less the development in the past decade of 
the automobile, or automatic vehicle, has 
attained such success that it is no longer a 
mere experiment. Today, upon the streets 
of any of our cities may be seen horseless 
carriages, trucks, wagons and fire engines, 
while in the country the traction engine 
and the automatic plow are gradually com- 
ing into use. 

Industrial science affords no more com- 
plex problem than the construction of a 
carriage which contains within itself all the 
elements of swift and safe transit for per- 
sons and goods. The development of the 
automobile has been slow until a compara- 
tively recent date. Briefly, and to avoid 
ancient history, let us take up the story 
of the horseless vehicle in its nearly perfect 
form. 

The principal motive powers for the 
motor vehicle to-day are electricity, gaso- 
line and steam, although there are several 
chemical and other agents, such as com- 
pressed air, which are in occasional use. 
In general, however, it may be stated that 
the last named have been dropped. 

The relative merits of the three systems 
now generally in use may be summarized 
as follows : 

THE EI-ECTRIC MOTOR. 

The greatest difficulty that is presented in 
the problem of driving a carriage by elec- 
tricity is that of the storage battery. For 



many years a great number of scientists 
have busied themselves striving after im- 
provements in the method of storing elec- 
tricity. The result of these experiments 
has shoAvn that weight is a serious handicap. 
Nevertheless, so convenient is the electrical 
method that the electric motor probably is 




A FASHIONABLE AUTOMOBILE. 

the most successful, in its particular sphere, 
now in use on automobiles. 

The mechanical arrangement of the aver- 
age electric automobile consists of a bat- 
tery, or series of batteries, in which is 
stored sufficient electrical fluid to serve for 
a seveiral hours' '•un. Tbese storage bat- 
teries must be filled at some power station, 
when run do-vvn, an operation that takes 
some time. It is customary in tte largo 



152 



SCIE.\X'E, IXVEKTIOX AND DISCOVERY 



cities, on automatic "bus" lines, to have a 
wire connection at the regular station of the 
"bus," whereby the batteries may be kept 
constantly supplied. From the storage bat- 
teries run connecting wires to a motor usu- 
ally located jn the rear axle of the vehicle, 
or in the hubs of the rear wheels. 

By the ordinary method of levers, the 
power is imparted to the motor, or thrown 
off at will. Very effective brakes, of neces- 
sity, make up a part of the complete auto- 
mobile. The best equipped ma- 
chines can come to a full stop 
from a high rate of speed in a 
very few feet. The steering gear 
is usually attached to the front 
wheels, and is operated by a hori- 
zontal lever near the front seat. 
However, some cabs steer by the 
rear wheels. The most up-to-date 
machines are equipped with elec- 
tric lights and bells. 

THE GASOLINE MOTOR. 

The motive power of the gaso- 
line automobile is derived through, 
the constant explosion of gasoline 
and air combined in proper quan- 
tities, which in turn operates a 
piston and a fly wheel, and finally 
the wheels of the carriage. The 
greatest advance in this style of 
pleasure automobiles has been 
made in France, and from that ^' 

country some of the best machines 
in present use in this country 
have been imported. The mechanical 
arrangement of the gasoline motor em- 
braces a tank for gasoline, a device for 
admitting air to the gasoline, a mixer or 
carburettor, an electric "sparker" which 
ignites the mixture under pressure, by 
means of which the explosion which drives 



the piston is produced. The usual method 
consists of four cycles. The spark first 
ig-nites the gasoline, and this explodes, driv- 
ing forth the piston, which, in turn, re- 
cedes, driving out the spent gases, thus pre- 
paring the cylinder for exploding the next 
intake of gasoline and air. A correspond- 
ing operation is in process in the other 
cylinder, both being connected with same 
crank shaft. A water jacket is one of the 
essentials of this machine, to prevent too 




courtesy of the Internatibnal Harvester Company of America. 

AUTOMOBILE MOWING MACHINE. 
At Work in a Field. 

high a temperature resulting from the 
constant explosions. Tremendous speed has 
been attained with this style of machine, a 
record of over eighty miles per hour having 
been made. 

Some of the difficulties attached to this 
method are the seeming impossibility of 



SCIENCE, INVENTWX AXJJ DISCOVERY 



153 



readily regulating the speed from high to 
low gear; the constant jar and racket due to 
the exploding gasoline; the disagreeable 
odor that follows the machine; the serious 
difficulties arising from the delicate adjust- 
ment of the sparking apparatus, and acci- 
dents occurring from starting the fly wheel 



THE STEAM MOTOR. 
The steam machine is operated by a 
simple steam engine, the steam for which is 
generated by heat from oil or gasoline. 
Among the chief points in favor of this 
method are its comparative freedom from 
vibration or jar, its comparatively noiseless 




courtesy of the Chicago Motor Vehicle Co. 
BACKING THE WTIEEL OFF A TWELVE-IXCH BLOCK ONTO AN EGG, CRACKING THE SHELL 
WITHOUT SPILLING THE CONTENTS, AND THEN MOUNTING THE BLOCK. 
A Demonstration of Perfect Control. 



by hand. All of these defects, however, 
have been obviated in the latest improve- 
ments. Some of these machines cost as high 
as $10,000. 



operation, and the universal knowledge of 
its propelling power. 

This vehicle is equipped with a burner, 
a boiler, cylinders and a chain connecting 



154 



SCIENCE, IXVEKTIOX AND DISCOVERY 



the fly "wlieel with one of the axles of the 
wagon. As in the gasoline method, fuel for 
trips of over a hundred miles can be carried 
easily. 

Self-propelling vehicles are huilt in 
scores of patterns. Some of the heavier 
drays use compressed air for motive power. 
In Paris the fire department is equipped 
with an electric automobile, and in other 
cities the chiefs use light veliicles in lim- 
ning to fires. The Chicago Motor Vehicle 
Company is operat- 
ing a very successful 
gasoline street car. 
Ambulances, ammu- 
nition wagons, bi- 
cycles and light rail- 
way hand cars are 
driven by light gaso- 
line engines. Many 
feats of cross-country 
riding, mountain- 
climbing and the like 
have tested the aston- 
ishing capabilities of 
the automobile. 

Motive power for 
farm purposes is 
receiving more and 
more attention. The 
latest departure is an 
automobile mower which is just being put 
on the market by the Deering Harvester 
Company of Chicago, or, to be more accu- 
rate, the International Harvester Company, 
of which the Deering is now a part. Their 
experiments began in 1894 and they suc- 
ceeded in getting one of the machines ready 
for exhibition at the Paris Exposition, 
where it attracted much attention. In com- 
petition it worked perfectly, running at any 



speed and turning even more easily than a 
team of horses. 

The mower is equipped with ball and 
roller bearings and is propelled by a motor 
which consists of two six-horse power gaso- 
line engines mounted tandem on a large 
pipe six inches in diameter and five feet 
long. The rear end of this pipe is secured 
to the mower frame in the place of the or- 
dinary draft tongue and the front end is 
supported bv a steering wheel. The ma- 




By courtesy of the Chicago Motor Vehicle Co. 
CLIMBING A 25-PER-CENT GRADE LOADED. 



chine is guided by the wheel which the 
operator holds in his left hand. The levers 
at his right are for operating the cutting 
bar. 

Although this motor is designed for the 
mowing machine it can be used for other 
purposes. By taking oif the cutting appar- 
atus it can be made to draw loads, grind 
feed, pump water and do many other useful 
things. 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



155 



RACING AUTOS. 

The greatest speed thus far attained by 
an automobile is two and one-fifth miles in 
a minute. At Ormonde Beach, Florida, on 
a straight course, Barney Oldfield, drove a 
200 h. p. Benz ear at the rate of 132 miles 
an hour, the time being A^erified by official 
timers. This terrific speed was maintained 
only for one minute, but it was enough to 
show that under favorable conditions, there 
is practically no limit to the speed of the 
modern high-class racing automobile. It 




ALCO CAR, WINXER OF VANDERBILT CUP, 1 
Harry Grant, Double Winner, at Wheel 



Avill be impossible, of course, to sustain this 
extreme speed for any considerable time or 
distance, as it would be too severe a tax on 
human endurance, to say nothing of the 
strain upon the mechanism of the car itself. 
As all of the distance contests take place on 
circular courses, many of them with sharp 
turns, and continuing for from 200 to 41.5 
miles, the average speed in such races is 
necessarily considerably less than that 
made by Oldfield in his straightaway dash 
at Ormonde. The greatest sustained speed 



made in a long-distance race in America 
(415.2 miles) is 70.28 miles an hour, which 
is fully 15 miles an hour more than the sus- 
tained speed of the fastest railway train on 
the run of 500 miles between Chicago and 
Buffalo. 

«r' tW &' 

EXTREME SPEED IN RACES. 
David Bruce-Brown, driving a Benz car, 
set a new American long-distance race rec- 
ord at Savannah, Ga., November 12th, 1910, 
when he won the Grand 
Prix, 415.2 miles, with 
a sustained speed of 
70.28 miles per hour 
for the entire distance. 
V. Hemery, also driving 
a Benz car, covered the 
long route at exactly 
the same rate of speed, 
but Bruce-Brown won 
on a handicap alloAV- 
ance. The fastest lap 
(17.2 miles) was made 
by Hemery in 13.50, a 
rate of 78 miles an 
hour. The day before 
the race Bruce-Brown, 
in a practice spin, cov- 
ered 74 miles in an hour. 
On October 1st, 1910, Harry F. Grant, 
driving an Alco car, won the Vanderbilt 
Cup race, 278.08 miles, on the Long Island 
(N. Y.) course, maintaining a speed of 65.18 
miles an hour for the entire distance. His 
fastest lap was made at the rate of 80.25 
miles an hour, while eleven other drivers 
made laps at from 79.69 to 70.22 miles an 
hour. The general roughness of the course, 
however, made it impossible to maintain 
such extreme speed for any considerable 
distance. 



SCIENCE, IXVEXTIOX AXD DISCOVERY 
GAS ENGINES— THE NEW POWER 



157 



Gas engines, so-called, l)ut erroneously, 
liave largelj^ replaced steam power engines, 
and are put to many uses, especially on 
farms, for Avhich steam motors have been 
found too unwieldy or expensive. The gas 
engine proper can be used only in localities 
where a constant and economical supply of 
illuminating gas can be obtained, Avliich 
necessitates close proximity to permanent 
gas works. "What are commonly known as 
gas engines are in reality gasoline motors, 
the motive poAver being 
obtained by explosions 
of a mixture of gaso- 
line and air in the cyl- 
inders. They are port- 
able, and may be used 
anywhere, independent 
of the source of fuel 
supply. The gasoline is 
carried in tanks at- 
tached to the engine. 
From the tank the gas- 
oline flows to a carbure- 
tor in which it is mixed 
with air (without air 
gasoline has no explosive force), and then 
injected into the cylinder in the form of a 
highly explosive vapor. This vapor is ig- 
nited by an electric spark and an explosion 
results immediately on top of the piston 
liead. This drives the piston downward 
and sets in motion a fly wheel, the revolu- 
tion of which tends to bring the piston head 
l)ack into position to receive another ex- 
l)losion. This process is repeated about 
.')()0 times a minute in each cylinder, so 
that with a motor of two or more cylinders 
there is a practically continupus series of 
explosions. The horsepower of the motors 
is governed by the diameter of the cylinder 



bore, the length of the piston stroke, and 
the number of cylinders coupled to one 
crank shaft. 

Gasoline motors of this description are 
Avidely used for a large variety of purposes. 
They were originally designed for the pro- 
pulsion of automobiles and their greatest 
use today is in this line. Next comes the 
motorcycle, an ordinary bicycle equipped 
with a gasoline motor. Aside from these 
uses the gasoline motor is fast coming into 




FARil TRACTOR THAT DOES THE WORK OF SIX HORSES. 



favor for a multitude of other purposes. 
Farmers are adopting it for threshing 
grain, cutting grass, sawing wood, pump- 
ing water, plowing and harvesting land, 
seeding grain, making butter, etc. In 
many parts of the country the gasoline 
motor is superseding the horse and ox in 
farm work. The farmer has learned that a 
motor does not require feeding, except with 
gasoline and lubricating oil, is practically 
tireless, ready to work twenty-four hours 
or longer at a stretch, and has a power 
capacity many times greater than that of 
flesh and blood. 



THE WORLD'S GREATEST MEAT 

MART 



THE CHICAGO STOCK YARDS 



I 



T IS a recognized fact that tlie world's 
greatest meat mart is located at Chi- 
cago, There are other aTeat stock 



T^nnsa? Citv 



yards and packing houses 
and Omaha, but they do 
not begin to compare 
with the stoci' yards in 
Chicago, 

The Union Stock 
Yards are located 4^ 
miles from the very 
heart of Chicago, Into 
these yards run 26 rail- 
roads that center in the 
metropolis of the west. 
The total area is a trifle 
over 600 acres, three 
hundred of which are 
paved with vitrified 
brick tiling, which makes 
the surface most substan- 
tial. Running through 
the pens are 25 miles of 
streets and alleys, 38 
miles of water troughs 
and 60 miles of feeding 
troughs. In addition to these there are 
over a hundred miles of water, sewer and 




CourtesT of Armour . 
DECOT GOAT LEADING SHEEP. 



drainage pipes. The total cost of the yards 
up to the date of this publication is in the 
neighborhood of $50,000,000. 

The stock yards were built in 1865, and 
the first day's receipts oi 
cattle, sheep and hogs 
numbered a trifle over 
300. At the present 
writing, it is not an un- 
common thing to see 20,- 
000 cattle, 30,000 sheep 
and 45,000 hogs in the 
yards at one time. The 
annual receipts of live 
stock are approximately 
as follows : 2,900,000 
cattle, 155,000 calves, 
9,325,000 hogs, 3,600,- 
000 sheep, and about 
130,000 horses and 10,- 
000 mules. To bring 
this stock into market 
requires nearly 400,000 
cars, which would make 
a train almost long 
enough to reach across 
from Xew York to San Fran- 



the continent, 

Cisco. In the yards there are about 15,000 



159 



160 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



pens, of wJiicii 8,000 are roofed in foi- slieep 
and 3,000 pens, or "double decks," for hogs. 

200 MILES OF RAILROAD TRACKS. 

Inside the yards are grouped nearly a 
score of separate packing houses, all doing 
an enormous business. There is also a bijr 



work of tracks comprising a total mileage 
of nearly 200 miles. 

If the visitor to Chicago wishes to wit- 
ness a busy scene, let him or her go to the 
stock yards between 5 and 9 o'clock any 
week-day morning, and they will see a great 
horde of people flocking to their daily 




GOVERNMENT INSPECTOR. 



office building kno-\\ni as the ''Exchange 
Building," which acconunodat^ nearly 
300 commission firms, the general offices of 
the stock yards company, a bank, and a 
branch of the Bureau of Animal Industry, 
of the TTnited States Department of AgTi- 
«iilture. Surrounding the yards is a net- 



work. Inside the yards alone there are 
regularly employed 33,410 men, women, 
boys and girls. The early morning is de- 
voted to the unloading of the live stock. 
After this is accomplished begins the sale. 
Soon after the sales are made, the stock is 
weighed to the purchaser, and if it is to be 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



101 



reshipped, is again loaded into cars and 
forwarded to its proper destination. 

GOVERNMENT INSPECTION OF MEATS. 

When tlie cattle, bogs and sheep are in 
the pens, the government inspectors step in 
and make a thorongh inspection of all live 
stock received. Condemned animals have 
a tag fastened in their ears. These animals 
are slaughtered under the direction of the 



PORK TESTED BY THE MICROSCOPE. 

Pork that is to be exported is subjected 
to a rigid microscopic inspection, and if 
found to contain disease of any kind, the 
carcass in which the disease is found is 
ordered "tanked" at once. All this work is 
done by a corps of expert microscopists, 
imder the direction of the chief of the 
Bureau of Animal Industry. Tiny bits of 




SECTION IN COOLER. 



Bureau of Animal Industry, and, if the 
meat is found to be diseased, the carcass is 
condemned and goes into the tank. In 
addition to this inspection, the Government 
keeps a man in every packing house in the 
yards, whose duty it is to inspect all ani- 
mals slaughtered, and so thorough is the 
work done that an animal can be traced 
from the time it arrives at the yards until 
it reaches the retail butcher's shop, 



meat are cut from each carcass that is to 
be exported, and after being placed in a 
tin box, are labeled, and later, taken to the 
microscopic de]:)artment, Avhere an inspector 
(usually a woman) cuts the meat into jelly 
with a tiny pair of scissors, after which 
the pulpy mass is j)laced between two 
pieces of clear glass, pressed together, and 
then subjected to a powerful microscope. 
If the meat is diseased, the microscopislf 





Ij 



FILLING PAILS WITH LARD. 




SKINNING SHEEP. 



SCIEXCE, IXVEXT/OX AXI) DISCOVERY 



163 



"will imincdiatclv discover it, aud that car- 
cass will be condemned. In Chicago, there 
are 90 inspectors at work during the whole 
year. 

PROCESS OF SLAnGHTERING AND 
DRESSING. 

In the great packing houses that abound 
within the yards, there is a familiar jest. 



house from beginning to end. The buyers 
of the concern purchase such cattle as are 
wanted for the day, which are driven from 
the pens over long runways, to the pens of 
the packing house, which is located near 
the slaughter house. Some of the packing 
houses have fat steers trained to lead the 
other cattle to the foot of the gang-way, 




LOADING INTO REFRIGERATOR CAR. 



that everything of the animals slaughtered 
except the squeal of the pigs is saved, and 
this is to-day literally true, for, that which 
once was loss is now made into various 
things. So complete is the utilization of 
that which was once waste, that the profits 
of a big packing house on its by-products 
amount to a small fortune each year. Let 
us follow the process of a typical packing 



there to turn and leave them, while the 
victims go on to their fate. From the gang- 
way there is an incline which leads into a 
small stall, or pen, directly opposite the 
killing floor. Above, on small platforms, 
the "knockers" run along, and with a small 
sledge-hammer, strike the cattle upon the 
head until they fall to the floor, stunned. 
Then the doors open automatically, and a 




SCALDING HOGS. 




SEWING HAMS FOR EXPORT. By courtesy of Armour & Co. 



SCIEXCE, IXVKXTIOX AXD DISCOVEWY 



165 



moment later, the animal is dangling by the 
hind foot at the end of a long chain, which 
suspends the carcass high enough for tiie 
butcher to cut its throat. The heads ai-e 
removed at the same time the carcass is 
drained of blood, and then in quick stages 
the bcjfs, shanks and entrails are removed. 



come the horn of commerce; the straight 
lengths of leg bone go to tJie cutlery makers 
for knife handles; the entrails become 
sausage casings and their contents make 
fertilizing material; the livers, hearts, 
tongues and tails, and the stomachs that 
become tripe, all are sold over the butchers' 




ROUGH FINISHING. 



The carcass is split down the backbone. It 
travels along on an endless chain, or trol- 
ley, is washed, and later taken into the 
great coolers to be chilled. 

NOTHING WASTED. 

Ever;^-thing that pertains to a slaughtered 
beef is sold and put to use. The horns be- 



counters of the nation; the knuckle bones 
are ground up into meal for various uses ; 
the blood is dried and sold as a powder for 
commercial purposes ; the' bladders are 
dried and sold to druggists, tobacconists 
and others; the fat goes into oleomar- 
garine, and from the hoofs and feet and 




*OLEO" AQIIAXION. 



SCIENCE, IXVEXTION AND DISCOVERY 



167 



other parts, come glue and oil and fertiliz- 
ing ingredients. 

Directly above the slaughter houses is a 
series of rooms full of bones and horns. 
The bones are boiled to get the fat of the 
marrow as -well as to clean them. Then 



Germany, to be worked into knife handles, 
fan handles, tooth-brush handles, backs for 
nail brushes, sides for pen knives, and in- 
to button-hook handles, shirt studs, cuff 
buttons, and so on, ad infinitum. "Wliat is 
to become of the horns is still more aston- 




SKINNING CATTLE. 



they are dried and shaken about until they 
are smooth and clean as cotton spools. The 
knuckle bones are cut from them, and one 
room is filled with the ground-up pulver 
of these parts. The white and pretty bones 
are shipped to Connecticut, England and 



ishing. By heating them and then tapping 
them skillfully, the operators loosen the 
soft cellular filling which solidifies and 
strengthens each horn. Thfe substance 
around this, between it and the inner sur- 
face of the horn, goes for glue; the rest 




Canning MiSPARTMBNT. ' By eounesy o." \rmour & Co. 



'tfinmM 



SCIEXC'L, IXVEXTIOX AXD DISCOVERY 



169 



is ground up Into bone meal. The horns 
are then sent to makers of horn goods, who, 
bj cutting each horn skillfully and then 
pressing it between heavy rollers, manage 
to spread each into a flat ribbon. In this 
shape, it can be used in a thousand ways. 
The artificers who do this work cut each 
horn spirally, so that it becomes a tight curl 
capable of being straightened out By 



a fog. As soon as it is cool, the sides of 
beef become firm, hard and almost appetiz- 
ing. Everywhere, except at the actual 
scene of slaughter, these houses and their 
work are clean and above criticism. 

HOG KILLING AND DRESSING. 

The killing of hogs is done in a mv...;ii 
more peculiar manner than the slaughter- 




SLIDING ONTO RAIL. 



immense pressure the curve is taken out of 
it. Good horns sell for $100 per ton. 

REFKIGERATION. 

The refrigerating and cooling rooms are 
kept at a temperature of 36 degrees, yet, 
when the meat fresh from the slaughter is 
railroaded into such a room, the animal 
heat in it warms the room for a consider- 
able time, and fills it with steam as with 



ing of cattle. Th« hogs are run into a 
catching pen, from where they are caught 
up and forced upon a revolving wheel, 
where the butcher stabs them to the heart, 
and death is practically instantaneous. 
From the wheel the dead body swings along, 
to be loosened over a vat of scalding water, 
into which it is plunged. Here the bristles 
are loosened. Then a great rake scoops out 
a hog, and it falls upon a runway, where 



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THE CATTI.E PENS. 




TAKING OUT LEAF LARD. 



SCIENCE, IXVENTIOX AND DISCOVERY 



171 



a chain that is hooked to its nose pulls it 
through a steam scraper. The knives of 
this machine are set at every angle, and 
miss no part of the hide on the body. 

When out of reach of the scraper a num- 
ber of men pass the body along, to remove 



cooling room. The blood is turned into 
albumen for photographers' uses, sold to 
sugar refiners or transformed into fertiliz- 
ing powder. The bristles go to brush 
makers, shoemakers and upholsterers. The 
fat is valuable in many forms, the intes- 




HOISTING ON REVOLVING WHEEL,. 



every bristle and speck that was missed. 
Then the body is washed with a hose, and 
its head is almost cut off. ISText it is dis- 
emboweled. Then the lard is removed, the 
head is cut off, the tongue taken out, and 
the body is split and passed along to the 



tines become sausage casings, livers, lungs 
and hearts are made up into sausage meat, 
and parts of tJie meat of the heads made 
up into headcheese. The feet are canned 
or pickled, or worked up in the lard 
tanks. 



172 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



SHEEP KILLING. 

The method used for killing sheep is similar to that 
heretofore described, except that they are suspended 
two by two on hooks that run along a continuous trolley 
line. As each pair passes the succession of men in waitr 
ing, a new step in the process is completed. The killer 
sticks the knives into their throats at the rate of 25 per 
minute, and the animals continue to pass through the 
hands of specialists at that rate of speed, until the 
carcass appears at the end of the trolley, spread apart 
with wooden braces, and ready for the refrigerating 
room. 

One of the big packing houses, in 1901, did a busi- 
ness of $160,000,000, which is astonishing when one 
thinks that there are a score or more which do an enor- 
mous business. The markets for the products of these 
American packing houses, of which those of Chicago 





RUMPING AND BACKING- 



SHEEP KILLING. 

are but the largest of many 
great ones in western cities, 
are found the world over. It 
■would be hard for any Euro- 
pean power to go to war with- 
out patronizing the American 
packing houses for their meats 
and supplies. During the Span- 
ish-American war the United 
States government drew on 
them heavily, and when Eng- 
land was fighting the Boers 
the American packers did an 
enonnous business. 
KILLING "KOSHER" CATTLR 

For Jewisli customers, meat 
must be dressed with especial 
religious rites. 

In closing this article it is 
proper to menti'^n a peculiar 



SCIEXCE, IXVEXTIOX AXB DISCO \ EH Y 



173 



feature of the yards, viz., tlie 
killing of cattle intended for 
the Jewish markets. For this 
purpose a "Kosherman" is in 
attendance, who, as a steer is 
thrown upon its back, with legs 
bound, takes a razor-like knifo 
and makes a stroke forward 
and a half stroke backAvard up- 
on its throat. After the carcass 
is dressed it is hung up, and 
remains thus about four days, 
the rabbi washing it carefully 
each day. lie then officially 
Tiarks it as fit for consump- 
fiou by those of his faith. 

'No country in the world, unless, possibly, 
South America, breeds mules so extensively 
as the United States, or regards their use- 
fulness so highly. Their value in some sec- 
tions of the country is manifested in the 
statement of a veterinary periodical, that 







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PUTTING UP SAUSAGES. 

100 mules were sold not long ago in Scott 
county, Kentucky, at $177 each. 

The perfection to which mule breeding 
has attained in this country, so far as de- 
velopment in size and strength is concernec!, 
is shown by a recent advertisement oLeri:jg 




By courtesy of the Lawrence Photographing C8, 
THE GREATEST HORSE MARKET IN THE WORLD. 
DEXTER PARK PAVILION, UNION STOCK YARDS. CHICAGO* 



174 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



I 



for sale two black mules, 
three years old and 17 
hands and 3 inches high. 
It is not uncommon in 
Pennsylvania and JSTew 
Jersey to see teams of 
mules on heavy work 
which stand 16 and 17 
hands in height. 

In no other part of the 
world are mules of this 
size bred. In most coun- 
tries large animals of 
this species are not re- 
garded with favor, 14 
hands being deemed the 
proper limit. The mule 
will do double the amount 
of heavy road hauling 
and work on the farm that is possible for 
the average horse, requires but two-thirds 
the food and half the attention demanded 




THE LONGEST TAILED HORSE IN THE WORLD. 
This remarkable animal was bred in Lexington, Ky., and attracts great 
attention at stock shows in Europe. His tail is 19 feet long, mane 12 leet and 
forelock 8 feet. He is a chestnut and stands laV2 hands. The last selling 
price for the horse was $20,000. 



by the latter, and can be depended upon, 
as a rule, for more than double the u"^ 
ber of years of service. 




SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



175 



CONSTRUCTION OF THE "SKY-SCRAPER" 




flATIRON BUILDING. NEW YORK CITT. 



Great has been the progi-ess in building 
in the last decade. Time was when a ten- 
storj office building would have been 
deemed an affront to Providence. But with 
the invention of the modern elevator and 
the rapid advance of land values in great 
cities, architects and contractors began seri- 
ously to study out methods for accommodat- 
ing great numbers of tenants in individual 
buildings. As long as buildings had to be 
constructed solely of brick and masonry 
there was a definite limit to their height, 
for, as the height grew so grew the weight 
of the walls and further altitude had to be 
sacrificed when it became impossible to fit 
the walls to carry the height without imdue 
expenditure. 

At the junction of Fifth avenue, Broad- 
way and Twenty-third street, New York, 
stands a unique structure, probably the 
strongest ever erected. It is known as the 
"flatiron" building, and is the cumulative 
result of all that is knovpn in the art of 
building. It is equipped with every con- 
venience that human ingenuity coiild flevise. 

BTnLDING WALLS FROM THE UPPER 
STORIES DOWNWARD. 

Suddenly there appeared an engineer 
who solved the problem by propounding the 
idea of building steel structures after the 
fashion of gigantic bridges set on end, and 
to hang the walls on — that is, to make the 
girders and beams support the floors and 
walls, instead of making the walls sup- 
port everything. This was called Chi- 
cago construction, because it originated 
with a Chicago man. Building under 
this method each floor is absolutely inde- 
pendent so far as the walls and parti- 
tions are concerned, for the walls have 




MONADNOCK BUILDING, CHICAGO, ILL. 
The largest office building in the West : 17 stories high, covering an entire block, facing four 
streets. Architects, Messrs. Holabird & Roche ; builders, The Geo. A. Fuller Co. Sixteen hydraulic 
elevators. Original cost $2,800,000. Occupants, 7,000 (equal to the population of a small town). 
£4,000 people carried by elevators each day. 12 horizontal tubular boilers 1,800 horse power, ali 
flouipped with smokeless furnaces. 



SCIEXCE, IXVEXTIOX AXD DISCOVERY 



17 



nothing but their own weight to carry in 
tliG height of each story. It is no un- 
common thing on "Chicago-copstruction" 
bailding-s for the contractor to begin his 
exterior work on the third, fifth or ninth 
story, leaving the first to be enclosed after 
every other floor has been walled in and 
plastered. This method of building is 
diametrically opposed to the old-fashioned 
solid-masonry construction, which begins 
at the very bottom with the foundation and 
rises to tke rootf, with the piers, exterior 
walls and partition walls going up to- 
gether. The contractor, building a sky- 
scraper according to ''Chicago construc- 
tion," shoots the steel frame-work up as rap- 
idly as possible, so as to get the roof on to 
protect the interior from the weather. With 
the frame-work up, he puts in the hollow 
tile partitions or builds the walls to suit 
his convenience. This method of building 
set all traditions, rules and time-honored 
customs of architects and builders at 
naught, for it ignored massive foundations, 
heav^- piers, the use of thick walls to carry 
weight, and solid partition walls running 
from the foundation to the roof. 

When new tenants moved into old-fash- 
ioned buildings, the rearrangement of 
spaces to meet the tenants' requirements 
frequently necessitated expensive altera- 
tions, for the partitions could not be moved 
without substitiiting some other form of 
•supports for the floors above. Chicago's 
architectural engineers concluded that col- 
umns starting from the foundations could 
carry the floors as well as partitions, and 
would thus permit any arrangement of a 
floor without interfering with the construc- 
tion. 

High buildings required monstrous foun- 
dations and very thick walls under the solid 



masonry style of construction. The lira? ted 
areas in the cramped business diiitricts of 
the cities made it impossible to build 16- 
story buildings under old-fashioned meth- 
ods because the builder could not get 
"spread" for his foimdations, and the 
original soil of Chicago was not adapted 
for carrying weights on small areas. 

THE ARCHITECTITRAL IBON WOEKEH. 

This style of new building developed a 
new craft — that of the architectural iron 
worker — who is a mixture of a bridge 
builder and a sailor. He must be a rigger 
as well as an iron worker, and must be able 
to tread the beams high in the air with the 
confidence and nerve of a tight-rope dancer. 
The building up of the great structures in 
the business center provided another source 
of wonder and admiration for the gaping 
crowds that watched the daring workmen 
riveting together angles and beams hun- 
dreds of feet in the air. Many sailors left 
the lakes and became iron workers, and the 
craft grew until it became one of the largesi 
and strongest of imions. 

OLD AND NEW STYLE FOUNDATIONS. . 

In solid masonry construction the foun- 
dations are made of heavy stones piled on 
each other so that they are broad at the base 
and somewhat pyramidal in form. On the 
foundation the massive piers rise, well- 
nigh filling up all the space in a basement. 
Under present methods of construction a 
basement, so far as room is concerned, is 
as valuable as the other floors, for the slen- 
der columns shoot up from the foundations, 
occupying comparatively little space. In 
"Chicago construction," the foundations are 
made of steel railroad rails or beams. 




I 



MASONIC TEMPLE, CHICAGO. 
The largest building ever attempted by a charitable or social organization. It is twenty 
•tories in height (265 feet), an(3 has a west frontage of 170 feet and a north frontage of 114 fee^ 
The first three stories are constructed of Wisconsin granite, and above them the material^ia graj 
flre-bricli. ' ■ 



SCIEXCE, JXVEXTIOX AXD DISCOVERY 



179 




First a bed of concrete 
is laid, and on this 
is placed a layer of rails 
or beams set side by side. 
On this bottom layer an- 
other layer of rails or 
beams is laid, crossing 
the lower members of 
the foundation at right 
angles. On top of the 
rails a cast-iron plate is 
laid. This is the shoe for 
the steel column. 
THE COLUMNS. 
The column is always 
made of wrought steel 
shapes and it is of uni- 
form size for each of two 
stories, diminishing in 
size as it nears the roof. 
The floor beams are car- 
ried on the columns and 
the entire frame-work is 
riveted together with hot 
rivets, just as a bridge is. 
Architectural engineers 
say that if it were pos- 
sible to upsfet a building 
of the ''Chicago-construc- 
tion" kind, the whole 
structure would tip over 
like a box and would not 
fail into pieces as a solid- 
masonry building would. 
An earthquake might 
rattle down some bricks, 
or loosen some partitions, 
but, according to claims 
made by Chicago build- 
ers, it would not throw 
down a Chicago skj- 
scraper. 




Copyright, 



by Detr 



TYPICAL NEW YORK "SKY-SCRAPERS.' 



The two great edifices here pictured are the tallest office buildings in the world and of all structures 

are surpassed only by the Washington Monument, the Eiffel Tower and 

one or two Cathedral spires. 



182 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



FIBEPROOriNG. 

Every piece of exposed steel work is com- 
pletely surrounded with! some fireproof 
material, such as blocks of tile, terra cotta 
or brick, and air spaces are left between 
the fireproofing material and the metal, for 
dead air is one of the poorest conductors of 
heat known. The hollow tile arches, 



sible to make them. The average thickness 
of the walls of a modern skyscraper runs 
from 16 to 18 inches, the walls carrying 
about the same thickness from the ground 
up. This is a radical departure from the 
old-fashioned construction, for the walls of 
the lower floors of 15 stories of solid mas- 
onry would have to be at least three and a 




courtesy of Lawrence Photo. Co. 



CHICAGO POSTOPFICE. 



between floor beams, are covered over with 
thick concrete, and this concrete is fire- 
proof. The partitions are of hollow tile, 
which is not only light as compared with 
brick, but is fireproof as well; and it is 
said that buildings of "Chicago construc- 
tion" are as nearly fireproof as it is pos- 



half feet thick, and would drop off about 
four inches for every two floors above the 
third. This thinness of walls in Chicago 
buildings has its disadvantages from the 
point of view of the architect, for it gives a 
"skimpy" look to the building, but to the 
ordinary man they are simply wonderi. 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



183 



PAPER. ITS HISTORY AND HOW IT IS MADE 



In the earliest times it was realized that 
the information of the world must be per- 
petuated, if true progress were to be ob- 
tained, otherwise each generation would 
have to learn for itself as its forefathers 
had done, without having the advantage 
of the experience already gained. So at 
first primitive man used the only tablets at 
his command and engraved strange hiero- 
glyphics upon stone, to tell what was de- 
sired to be preserved. In the height of 
Egyptian civilization obelisks, pyramids 
and slabs of stone took the place of the 
ruder tablets. Later clay and terracotta 
were used for the making of tablets, and 
great libraries were even formed, portions 
of which are still preserved, to give us the 
history of the Chaldeans, the Babylonians 
and the Assyrians. As time passed other 



materials Avere introduced, plates of metal, 
skins and bones of animals, ivory, wood 
and wax being used. 

It was Egypt that gave us the real fore- 
runner of paper, and, indeed, the name it- 
self, by a material made from the graceful 
water plant of the Nile, the familiar Egyp- 
tian bulrush or papyrus. Out of the pith 
of its stems were made sheets of a material 
not much indeed like the paper of to-day, 
but the pioneer of paper manufacture. 
Rolls of this material were made into books, 
and a large amount of the history and liter- 
ature of the time was thus preserved for the 
use of students of to-day. The Chinese, 
about the same time, were independently 
learning to make paper from rice and silk. 
The first rival of papyrus Avas parchment 
prepared from the skins of sheep and goats. 



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SORTING RAGS FOR FINE BOOK PAPER IN A PAPER MILL. 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



It grew in favor, owing to the partial ex- 
haustion of the papyrus heds on the jSTilc, 
and because the Egyptians wanted to hold a 
monopoly and raised prices of their prod- 
uct beyond all reason. The next step for- 
ward was the invention of paper as we have 
it to-day. 

Like a great many other inventions of 
present value, the first European knowledge 
of paper-making came from the Chinese. 
They had been making paper for more than 
1,000 years when, in 1189, the art was in- 
troduced into France, the first country of 
Europe where it was made. The Arabs had 
learned the art from the Chinese, and from 
them it passed to western Europe through 
the Crusaders who visited the Moslem coun- 
tries. The Dutch were the next Europeans 
to make paper, and the English followed, 
about the time of the discovery of America. 
Long before this, however, the Saracens 
had introduced paper-making into Spain, 
whence it had reached Italy. 

The first paper mill in America was es- 
tablished at Germantown, Pennsylvania, in 
1690, by a paper-maker from Holland, one 
of the owners of the mill being the printer 
who some years later gave to Benjamin 
Franklin his first employment in Philadel- 
phia. During the early history of paper 
making, rags were the only material used. 
The scarcity of rags was so great that the 
mills had to continually appeal for them 
by advertisements and solicitation, and the 
paper mills in the thirteen colonies grew in 
number so rapidly that the scarcity of ma- 
terial caused much inconvenience. 

Before the most recent modern processes 
of paper-making had been invented, the 
production was much more expensive and 
slower. Everything was done by hand, and 
it took three men a day to finish 4,000 




SCIEXCE, IXVEXTIOX AXD DISCOVEUY 



185 



small sheets of paper, wHle from the be- 
ginning to the end the process required 
about three months. This is a striking con- 
trast to the conditions of the present, when 
by machinery paper can be made from the 
tree as it stands in the forest within twenty- 
four hours. But little hand-made paper is 
used in America, except for special pur- 
poses. But all Bank of England notes are 
printed on linen paper, made by hand, with 
but two notes to a sheet. 

The better and more expensive grades of 
paper are still made from rags, gathered 
and shipped in great quantities from all 
parts of the country and indeed from all 
Dver the world. China is one of the most 



important of the rag markets. They come 
to the factories in i\\\ conditions of filth, 
and the processes of sorting and cleaning 
are of the utmost importance to the perfec- 
tion of the product. The mills making the 
highest gi-ade bond paper, and that used for 
our paper money, use nolihing, however, ex- 
cept new rags fresh from the mills or from 
garment factories where the trimmings are 
saved for the purpose. 

When sorting and cleaning are done*, the 
rags are chopped into small pieces, boiled 
for a day under steam pressure, and finally 
treated with chemicals for an additional 
cleaning and bleaching of the resulting 
pulp. By this succession of processes the 




INTERIOR VIEW OP A GREAT PAPER MILL. 



186 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



dirty rags from the streets come forth a 
mass as white as milk. The pulp is drained 
and dried to a proper consistency, and fin- 
ally passed through a great machine which 
converts it into the paper itself. By the 
flow of pure water the liquid pulp is spread 
out evenly over a wire cloth into a sort of 
web of damp paper, which is delivered on 



material. The surfaces are given a gloss 
or polish, or a rough or antique finish, ac- 
cording to the purpose for which it is in- 
tended. 

Although the more expensive papers arc 
made from rags, the great bulk of what is 
used in books, magazines and newspapers 
comes from wood pulp, the newest devel- 




AT WORK IN A BOOK BINDERY, FOLDING MACHINES IN THE FOREGROUND. 



an endless belt of moist felt. Successive 
squeezings and scrapings dry the paper, 
smooth it and give it strength. From this 
point the additional processes are merely 
those for finishing different grades of the 



opment in modern paper manufacture. The 
different fibers used in paper-making, 
whether of wood or rags, do not differ 
greatly after their mechanical and chemical 
treatment is finished. When the logs are 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



187 



cut in the forests, the bark is stripped from 
them and thej are sent to the factory. Here 
they are sawed and split into small blocks, 
after which they are ground to a powder 
which becomes a puip when diluted with 
water. This pulp, chemically treated to 
bleach it and to remove all resinous and 
foreign matters, then passes through pro- 
cesses similar to those by which paper is 
made from rags. 

All of the paper from which our green- 
backs and bank notes are made comes from 
one mill. It is made from the finest new, 



clean linen rags, and there is a special at- 
tachment on the machine by which the silk 
threads always seen in our paper money 
are introduced. It is forbidden to make 
such paper for private use, under the same 
penalties that apply to counterfeiting. 

Paper fills an important place in many 
mechanical arts, and there are various 
novelty papers made which have important 
uses. Paper made wdth a quantity of as- 
bestos fiber is used for fire-proofing pur- 
poses ; tar paper is used for covering roofs 
and lining walls ; photographs are made up- 




TRIMMING AND MAILING MAGAZINES IN A BINDERY. 




mmmn^un 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



189 



on paper rendered sensitive by a chemical 
process; carbon paper, transparent paper, 
stencil paper, gunpowder paper, safety 
paper for bank jhecks, and other familiar 
forms are but developments of the ordinary 
paper products. Sand and emery papers 
are prepared by coating a sheet of paper 
with glue, and then sprinkling sand or 
emery dust upon the surface. Car wheels, 
lumber, buckets and tubs, and many arti- 
cles of common use are made from paper 
pulp. 

The United States leads in paper-mak- 
ing, producing about one-third of all that 
is used on the globe. The city of Holyoke, 
Massachusetts, is the greatest paper cen- 
ter in the world for expensive papers of 
linen. The cheaper grades of paper, from 
wood pulp, are made in great quantities iu 
the mills of Maine, Canada and Wisconsin, 
convenient to the forests which provide the 
material, 

HOW A GREAT NEWSPAPER IS 
MADE 

Like the induf tries and the affairs of the 
world which it records, the modern news- 
paper has grown to a magnitude and an 
influence never dreamed by the pioneers of 
the press. Perhaps not changed greatly in 
the smallest towns, where the newspaper 
proprietor may embody in himself all the 
editorial and mechanical labors of his of- 
fice, in the city it is a very different institu- 
tion. 

In order that the morning paper may be 
read by its thousands of subscribers at their 
breakfast tables, sometimes hundreds of 
miles from the place of publication, hun- 
dreds of employees must work in one de- 



partment or another to produce and circu- 
late the printed pages. In fact, the work 
of producing the paper begins long before 
the time of its publication, and enlists the 
energy of men who may be far away. The 
material equipment of presses, machinery 
and type comes from great factories where 
the highest mechanical ingenuity is em- 
ployed to perfect the processes. The paper 
mills must turn out miles of broad, white 
ribbon, which, when printed and folded, be- 
comes the morning paper. Back of the 
manufacturers and the paper mills come the 
miners, who toil deep in the earth to pro- 
duce the metals, and the lumbermen of our 
northern forests, who cut and raft the logs 
from which the paper is made. Corre- 
spondents the Avorld over keep a multitude 
of telegraph operators busy, transmitting 
the important facts of the day to the office 
from which the paper is to issue. Railways 
run special trains to insure prompt distri- 
bution of the finished journal, and by the 
time the newsboys, the clerks in the busi> 
ness ofiice, and the editorial staff itself are 
added to the list of participants, the num- 
ber who from the beginning to the end have 
shared in making the paper, which the 
reader buys for a cent, is an astonishing 
one. 

In order to carry on all these manifold 
operations harmoniously, and without delay 
at a critical time, a great newspaper miisi 
be organized Avith the utmost care. The 
business, the mechanical and the editorial 
departments have their distinct functions, 
all of prime importance. It is the business 
department that docs the work of securing 
subscriptions and advertisements, circulat- 
ing the paper to subscribers, collecting bills 
and paying expenses. It is a self-evident 
fact that a carelessly managed business de- 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



191 



partment could soon destroj the most ablj 
edited publication. 

The mechanical department receives 
from the editorial staff of writers and art- 
ists, the articles they have written and the 
pictures they have drawn, and, from the 
business department, the advertisements 
which have been received for publication. 
Out of this material the finished product is 
made, by the various processes of type-set- 
ting, zinc-etching, stereotyping and print- 
ing. 

The editorial department is the one first 
thought of by the reader, for from this 
department come the various articles of 
news, criticism, opinion and fact that go to 
make up the printed sheets. 

The editorial staff of a newspaper is di- 
rected by the managing editor, who is him- 
self, like the business manager and mechan- 
ical superintendent, responsible directly 
to the publisher. Under the managing 
editor are the numerous out-of-town cor- 
respondents, who send matter by mail 
and telegraph; the city editor and his 
reporters, who gather the local news and 
write it; the special writers who fur- 
nish dramatic criticisms, sporting news, lit- 
erary or musical notes and the like; and 
the copy readers, who give final revision to 
all this matter after it has been written, in 
order to be sure that the style and policies 
of the paper are conformed with, that errors 
are giiarded against, and that nothing libel- 
ous is included. The artists, too, report to 
the managing editor or city editor, because 
their work, while pictorial, must conform to 
the general style of the paper. 

Once the manuscript has heen prepared 
and finally revised, it goes to the composing 
room, into the hands of the mechanical de- 
partment. Except in the smaller oflSces, tho 



old method of setting type by hand has been 
done away with, by the invention of a me- 
chanical device called the Linotype ma- 
chine. By this machine one type-setter 
can accomplish as much as five or six hand 
compositors, with a higher average of ac- 
curacy. The Linotype, invented and per- 
fected by Ottomar Mergenthaler, is a cum- 
bersome and complicated apparatus, but it 
achieves its purpose with what seems almost 
human deftness and skill. The operator 
sits before the keyboard, not unlike that of 
a typewriter. The upper part of the ma- 
chine is a magazine of molds or matrices, 
each in its own box, and carrying at one 
end the form of a printed letter. In an- 
other place there is a quantity of molten 
tj^emetal, kept heated by a gas flame. As 
the operator taps the keys indicating the 
letters he desires to use, each matrix slips 
from its box in proper order and falls into 
place in a little tray made for the purpose. 
"When these have assembled, to the length of 
a full line of type, an arm controlled by a 
lever lifts them to a set of clamps, where an 
impression is taken from them in the proper 
quantity of the hot metal. This is the linei- 
of-type, cast in one piece, which gives the 
machine its name. The matrices are car- 
ried up to the magazine again by another 
arm, and by an ingenious device each is dis- 
tributed to its proper place once more. 

When the article has been put in type in 
this fashion from the manuscript, an im- 
pression is made from the type, called a 
proof, and this is sent to proof-readers, who 
examine it for errors which must be cor- 
rected. When the type has accumulated 
sufficiently to be classified, or made up into 
the page of the paper, this is done, and the 
entire page sent to the stereotyping room. 
The printing of great papers is not done di- 



SCIEXCE, TXVEXTIOX AXD DISCOVERY 



193 



rectly from the Ijpe cast. The size of the 
editions requires that several presses should 
be at work simultaueouslj, in order to issue 
the paper in time. Duplicate plates are 
therefore made from the type pages, by the 
process of stereotyping, as many as are nec- 
essary for the number of presses used. 
These stereotype plates are not flat, but 
curved into a half circle, so that they may 
be clamped on to the cylinder of the press 
used for printing. 

The pictures drawn by the artists are re- 
produced by a photographic process, which 
transfers the picture to a sheet of zinc, that 
is then treated with nitric acid to bring out 
the artist's lines. After such an engraving 



is finished, it may be placed in the page of 
type and stereotyped like the type itself. 

The perfecting printing press of the new- 
est design and largest size is one of the mos*. 
interesting pieces of mechanism to be found 
anywhere. The curved metal plates, or 
"turtles," from which the printing is done, 
are locked in place ; the rolls of paper like 
great bolts of ribbon, perhaps six feet wide 
and five miles long, are hung in place on 
the press; the ends of the strips of paper 
are woven through the labyrinths of rollers, 
cylinders and wheels of the machine, an 
electric button sig-nals the starting, and the 
clamor begins. Then from the further end 
of the press begin to fall the folded newspa- 



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MACHINE FOR MAKING WHITE PAPER FOR NEWSPAPERS. 



194 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



pers, printed, pasted, even addressed if 
they are intended for the mail, at a rate of 
24,000, 48,000 or even 96,000 an hour. 
Truly a battery of half a dozen such 
presses, multiplying the printed pages for a 
myriad of readers, should be a more effec- 
tive force in the world than a battery of 
artillery thundering against an enemy. 

HOW BOOKS AND MAGAZINES 
ARE ILLUSTRATED 

The great increase in book and magazine 
illustration, made possible by the improve- 
ment of mechanical devices, has brought 
about the establishment of important busi- 
ness concerns, devoted entirely to the mak- 
ing of pictures. Various processes are em- 
ployed in publishing houses for the illus- 
tration of the books, magazines and news- 
papers which they produce, but the most 
effective and artistic of these for general 



purposes is that employed in the volume 
herewith presented. It is a photo-engrav- 
ing process, producing what is known as 
half-tones. 

It was found that by photographing the 
picture or object desired for reproduction, 
through a fine screen of muslin or wire 
gauze, or lines scratched on a glass plate 
and then filled up with ink, the little 
squares in the screen would separate the 
rays of light according to the strength of 
the lights or shadows of the picture. Where 
the shadows are most intense the rays run 
together, so that the effect on the plate is of 
the black shadows running all together, but 
where they are lighter, the rays form little 
dots upon the plate, while in the high lights 
or white places it is still more dotted. 

If you will take the magnifying glass and 
examine any half-tone engraving, you will 
see that the whole picture is made up of 
little cross bars. This effect of the screen 





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OFFICE OF A GREAT ILLUSTRATING AND ENGRAVING COMPANY. 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



195 



is called ''stippling." The screen is placed 
just in front of the plate to be photographed 
upon, in the camera, and as the rays of light 
come in through the lenses they are diffused 
according to the intensity of the lights or 
shadows in the object being photographed. 
The screen is ruled in little bars, with lines 
from eighty to 150 to the inch. They are 
so small that they hardly appear as lines 
when the cut is viewed at a little distance, 
and by the process described they produce a 
picture iipon a copper or brass plate almost 
a counterpart of the photograph. 

The coarser line engravings used in news- 
papers are made with great rapidity by a 
process known as zinc etching. The artist 
draws in India ink the picture to be pro- 
duced, making his sketch much larger than 
it is to appear in the paper. The process of 
engraving reduces the size and at the same 
time improves the work of the artist. This 
drawing is next photographed and devel- 
oped by ordinary processes, and from the 
negative a print is made on a sheet of sensi- 
tized zinc, just as one would print an ordi- 
nary photograph on sensitized paper. The 
zinc plate is treated by a developing process 
that shows up the lines of the picture, and 
after this it is given a bath in nitric acid 
that eats away the exposed surface of the 
zinc plate and leaves the photographic lines 
standing out. Eepeated eatings by acid, 
and retouching by skilful engravers, with 
sharp tools, bring the plate to final perfec- 
tion, after which it is mounted on a metal 
base and is ready to be used in printing. 

Colored pictures are made by a process 
similar to that of the half-tones, with some 
additions. Three plates are made of the 
same subject, which are used respectively 
with three different inks, red, yellow and 
blue. Such colors combined in proper pro- 



portions, by printing one on top of another, 
will give any shade or color desired. One 
plate is arranged for printing the blue, an- 
other for the red and another for the yellow. 
Each picture must go through the press 
three times for these colors to be put on, 
one at a time, and of course the work must 
be very accurate so that the successive im- 
pressions will be in the right place. When 
the Avork is finished, however, if this is done 
properly, there is a remarkable colored pic- 
ture produced, with artistic effects, and yet 
at great speed and moderate expense. 

'Not merely mechanical processes, but 
genuine artistic ability as well, must be 
employed to obtain such results. The one 
to whom this work is given, carefully 
studies the subject to be printed, as to its 
color, and the proper combination of inks 
to produce the desired colors is decided. 
The first plate of the three is then arranged 
for printing in blue. All that portion, 
which is to appear in heavy blue has a 
heavy surface left on the engraving; the 
lighter shades are stippled more, eaten out 
by the acid or carved out by hand, accord- 
ing to the degree of intensity needed. That 
portion which needs blue in combination 
with one or both of the other colors is 
shaded in proportion. This plate, after 
being thus made ready, is marked near the 
edges with lines which aid in printing the 
next color, exactly on top of the first at the 
proper place. 

ISText the plate from which the yellow is 
to be printed is prepared in the same way, 
and the red plate completes these prelim- 
inaries. Proofs of each plate are taken 
separately and together to see if the right 
color scale has been worked out. If the 
final proof is correct, the register marks 
should exactly coincide, and the colors 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



197 



should blend so tliat they appear to be 
j)riuted by a single impression. The com- 
pleted work is a perfect colortype, resem- 
bling a half-tone photographic engraving 
in the natural colors. 

The chromos of a few years ago are en- 
tirely superseded by the process thus de- 
scribed, which in addition to being much 
more satisfactory and artistic in its results, 
is more rapid and far cheaper. The new 
])rocess has made it possible for beautiful 
pictures, colored as in nature, to be pos- 
sessed by multitudes of lovers of beauty 
and art, at small cost, and house decoration 
is greatly aided thereby. 

LOCOMOTIVES AND THEIR CON- 
STRUCTION 

The modern locomotive, that draws 
trains of palace cars across the continent 
at a bewildering speed, has not many points 
iu common with the "Rocket" and those 
other pioneer engines of the pioneer rail- 
ways early in the century. Locomotives 
are getting larger and faster by a process 
of steady improvement in the mechanism 
and material. A score of great factories 
are busy turning out such engines for 
American railways, day and night, and 
with the great increase in railway mileage 
and traffic, it is almost impossible for the 
construction of train equipment to keep up 
Avith the demands of the roads. The loco- 
motive trust, organized in 1901, with a 
capital of $50,000,000, includes all but two 
of the important American manufactories. 
These two, however, are among the larg- 
est, and one of them is perhaps the largest 
of all such works in the world. 

American locomotives are used the world 
over. In Australia, New Zealand, India, 
South America, South Africa, Manchuria, 



Russia and Siberia, the American traveler 
finds himself drawn over the rails by an 
American en2;ine. The American factories. 




198 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY. 



with characteristic adaptability, turn out 
locomotives of every type from the mon- 
ster mountain-climbing giant of 120 tons 
for the Rockies or ^he Sierra Nevadas, to 
the smallest engine for a mine or a sugar 
plantation. Making locomotives according 
to regular designs and patterns, so that the 
various parts of it are as interchangeable 
as the parts of a watch, these great facto- 
ries can supply a demand with surprising 
rapidity. The greater locomotive works 
can turn out complete engines all the year 
round, at the rate of from two to five a 
day. If the order be for one of a regular 
type and size, they can deliver it out of the 
stock room as promptly as a grocer can de- 
liver a barrel of sugar. For a test of 
speed, locomotives have been built out of 
the parts into the completed machine, ready 
for the track, in twelve hours. 

It is this facility that has enabled the 
American builders to get into the world 
markets with such great rapidity, in com- 
petition with the Engli.sh, French, Belgian 
and German builders who have hitherto 
raonopolized the trade. Even such Austra- 
li'an, Russian and South African railway 
managers as believed the European locomo- 
tives to be superior could not overcome the 
temptation to buy the American machine, 
promised for shipment • and delivered in 
three months or less, when the European 
competitor demanded one or two years. 
Even the English railways themselves have 
begun to buy American locomotives, apol- 
ogetically explaining that it was prompt- 
ness of delivery which compelled their 
choice. 

Generally speaking, English locomotives, 
iind consequently English trains, have the 
better of us in speed. There are various 
veasons for this. One is that the English 



roads early adopted the principle that there 
must be no surface crossings, either of other 
railways or of wagon roads, so that they 
avoid many delays and halts which Amer- 
ican trains must make. Then, too, the Eng- 
lish lines are invariably double-tracked, a 
policy which rules only on the richer Amer- 
ican roads, in the most thickly populated 
districts. Then there are no such long runs 
in the British Isles as we have in America. 
The through trains between London and 
Glasgow or Edinburgh, a distance of not 
much more than 400 miles, and between 
London and Liverpool, less than 200 miles, 
are the ones making the longest runs. They 
have no such thing as our transcontinental 
lines to maintain. 

The London Transport of May 10, 1901, 
printed figures showing the relative speed 
of English and American express trains. 
For distance up to 100 miles, the English 
trains average 41 miles an hour and the 
American trains, 42 miles. It is fair to 
say, though, that the average for this coun- 
try is brought up by the great speed of 
the trains between Philadelphia and At- 
lantic City, otherwise it would fall slightly 
below that of England. For a distance of 
100 to 250 miles, the average in both cases 
is about 40 miles an hour. For long dis- 
tances English express trains average 43.3 
and American 35 miles an hour. All coun- 
tries have their speed records of exceptional 
runs and we do not fall below others in this. 
Speed up to seventy and eighty miles an 
hour is no longer uncommon, while for short 
distances on straight track some trains have 
actually achieved the marvelous speed of 
112 miles an hour. It is to the American 
locomotive builder that the credit must be 
given for the machines that race over the 
track at such an amazing speed. 



(HE AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL INVASION OF EUROPE 



The American industrial invasion of for- 
eign lands has reached such proportions as 
to disconcert and even alarm many thought- 
ful men abroad, who see their countries 
being exploited for American profit and 
their opportunities utilized by American 
energy. American industrial pioneers are 
entering the activities of Europe, Asia and 
Africa, in competition with the English, 
French, Germans and Belgians, who have 
believed themselves to be safe in their 
monopoly of their respective fields of en- 
deavor. 

Even in London, an English builder, 
inanufacturer, engineer or promoter fi.nds 
his American rivals at every turn. Great 
American manufactories are establishing 
branches in England, and in some instances 
actually buying out their former English 
competitors. In 1901, the British match- 
manufactories wei'e absorbed by the Amer- 
ican match trust, a fact which greatly dis- 
turbed English students of commercial and 
industrial conditions. 

A striking achievement was made a 
year later by an American builder, who 
practically completed in ten months a 
huge work that the most enterprising of 
British contractors declared could not be 
done in less than five years. He shook 
the traditions of British bricklayers, car- 
penters, builders and theorists to their 
foundations. The London Times devoted 
one of its ponderous editorial columns to 
a lesson to the British workmen, based on 
this American contractor's success, and 
other papers all over the British Isles took 
up the refrain. 



The British "Westinghouse Company, 
which was to supply the electric fittings for 
most of the underground railways that 
American capitalists were building in Lon- 
don, found it necessary to erect one of the 
greatest electrical plants in the world at 
Manchester. Being to all intents and pur- 
poses a British company, they were natu- 
rally very anxious to give the British con- 
tractors the job of building it. A Man- 
chester company got the contract for 
foundations, and a London company for 
the steel work, both these contracts being 
allotted in May, 1900. Neither of the con- 
cerns could "see their way" to saying when 
the work was likely to be done. The 
foundation people thought the matter over 
and finally began the work in July. In 
November the foundation of one of the 
largest buildings was in such condition that 
the steel work could be begun, and then the 
London contractors arrived on the scene 
and the work proceeded in an eminently 
dignified way. 

Meanwhile the capitalists were making 
things hum, extending their systems right 
and left, pushing through plans for the 
electrification of old-fashioned steam lines 
with such rapidity that it made the old- 
fashioned stockholders dizzy to think about, 
and pouring huge hurry-up orders on the 
Westinghouse Company. 

At the gait things were going the ne^^ 
plant would not be ready in time to fill 
the orders, and the great enterprise would 
be delayed, at a cost that might be disas- 
trous. George Westinghouse promptly 
took a hand in it, and told the contractors 



901 



202 



SCIESCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



that the whole group of buildings must be 
ready in two and a half years. The con- 
tractors threw up their hands in holy hor- 
ror. It couldn't be done in less than five. 
Ko man on earth could do it in less than 
five. 

The situation was serious, for it was be- 
ginning to look as if even two and one-half 
years was going to be too long to wait. 
Then somebody called to mind the doings 
of an American contractor named Stewart, 
head of the firm of J. C. & A. M. Stewart, 
of St. Louis, Pittsburg and ITew Orleans, 
who had taken in hand the principal build- 
ing of the Pittsburg Exposition when it 
had burned down three months before the 
day the show was to open. Stewart had it 
up again and finished ahead of time. His 
rush work on some grain elevators was so 
striking that a novel had been based upon 
it. He had restored the Galveston system 
of docks and storehouses in forty-five days 
from the time they were destroyed. 

The Westinghouse people told Stewart 
they wanted him to take the Manchester 
job, and finish it in fifteen months. The 
agreement was signed in Pittsburg, and 
the contractor took the first steamer for 
Liverpool. He had never been in England 
before, and did not know what was wait- 
ing for him. He landed on January 24. 
One week later his best two men got four 
hours' notice to start for England. One 
of them was in Kew Orleans and the other 
in Toledo, O., but they both caught the 
Teutonic two days after. Before they 
could reach England, however, Stewart was 
hustling home aboard the Oceanic. The 
two men stopped at Queenstown, hired a 
tender and went out to meet the Oceanic, 
and had a bundle of minute instructions as 
big as a log of wood tosse(5 to them. The 



next day they were at the Manchester 
works, and things had begun to happen. 

Three weeks later, Stewart, who had 
been collecting some of his good men, and 
buying American appliances for handling 
work, was back in Manchester. He brought 
ten young Americans, whom he had trained 
himself, and with them he sailed into the 
biggest fight of his life. Eor the next few 
weeks he and his little band got about four 
hours' sleep per night. They "riished" 
things all day and spent half the night in 
discussing how they were to be rushed the 
next day. Stewart slept in a little hotel 
within a hundred yards of the work. His 
two men slept on the plans in the ofiice. 
They were working every morning at six. 

When the American took charge of 
affairs at Manchester there were 236 men 
on the job. In four weeks there were 
2,500. Stewart had an advertisement in 
each of the largest provincial papers, say- 
ing that carpenters and bricklayers were 
wanted, and they came in from all over the 
country. As soon as a man came in he was 
set to work. He got a fair trial, and if 
he was no good he was discharged. Every 
morning Stewart and two of his men made 
a complete tour of the work, and all three 
took note of how things were progressing. 
Every gang of men that didn't get ahead 
fast enough had an American foreman 
placed behind him. Every day's work was 
carefully measured and compared with the 
record of the day before. If there was no 
improvement the contractor found out why. 

Before going any further, it may be well 
10 give a few rather striking figures that 
tell better than any technical description 
could, what sort of a job the American eon- 
tractor had tackled. The plant as it was 
completed is the biggest in the world 



SCIENCE, IXYENTIOX AXD DISCOTEBY 



203 



ever built at one time. "When Mr. Stewart 
was asked -with what one could compare it, 
he mentioned the Westinghouse factories 
at Pittsburg and the General Electric Com- 
pany's plant at Schenectady. It consists 
of nine immense buildings, the office build- 
ing, machine shop, box-factory, power- 



force being doubled or quadrupled, they 
wailed that they could not look after so 
many men. So they put the men on and 
Stewart did the "looking." Sometimes 
they wanted to back out of their contracts, 
saying that they couldn't buy the material 
and make any profit ; so Stewart went out 




THE FIRST AXD ONLY SE\-EX-MASTED SCHOONER IN THE WORLD. 

This steel craft is cot only the largest fore-and-after ever built, but it is the largest sailing vessel of 
any kind in the world. It is 3SS feet long at the water line, 50 feet wide and carries 8,000 tons of cargo 
with a crew of only 16 men. Built in Boston, 1902. 



house, steel-foundry, iron-foundry, brass- 
foundry, pattern-shop, and dipping and 
drying-shop. The cost of the buildings was 
about $7,500,000, Twelve million feet of 
lumber were used, and 5,000,000 bricks, 
750,000 feet of glass, and 40,000 square 
yards of paving, or enough to pave a street 
three miles long. About 4,500 men were 
employed. 

Putting up this building was a fight from 
the start. Xo sooner was one obstacle over- 
come than another popped up. In the first 
place, the sub-contractors would not put on 
enough men. They had ten men on the 
job where a hundred have been used in 
America, and when Stewart insisted on the 



and bought it for them. When they said 
they couldn't get some little job finished, he 
told them that there was $100 extra in it 
for them if they did, and somehow the job 
was done on time. "When bulldozing 
worked best he bulldozed and held their 
"penalties" over their heads; when they 
seemed like to stand out he cajoled. 

The railway terminus was not far from 
his works, and the contractor built a line 
from the depot to the grounds and ran a 
section of it into every building. Two hun- 
dred and fifty carloads of stuff were coming 
in every day, and Stewart's little engine 
was kept breathless, shunting it where it 
belonged, but the supplies were not enough 



204 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



*c keep pace with the work. The fault was 
■*,he contractors' again. They notified the 
American that they had shipped goods, 
whereas the men he sent flying to look them 
up found the stuff piled up in their yards, 
lie insisted on his advices being sent by 
telegraph, and, insisted, too, that every 
shipper supply the car numbers in which 
the stuff was sent, a demand that never 
before had been made in England. lie had 
his men all over England following the cars. 
They called on railway superintendents 
and asked why cars did not get along faster, 
and kept hammering at the officials until 
they did something. 

In dealing with his men he had first to 
fight their prejudice against him because 
he was a "damned Yankee." The more they 
saw of him, though, the better they liked 
him. He made a policy of keeping every 
promise he made them. If he said he would 
pay a man extra for a job, the man got his 
pay. If he threatened to "fire" a man if 
he didn't do better, the man was fired. He 
paid his men two cents an hour above the 
union wages. He allowed them "walking 
time" — half an hour in the morning to get 
to the works. He kept a supply of hot 
water to be served out to them for their tea. 
AVhen they did a job especially well, he 
treated them all to free beer. The union 
riiles of England did not allow him to pay 
the men that did the most of the work the 
best wages, but he got around that by keep- 
ing only the best men and discharging the 
rest. 

And be made them work as they had 
never dreamed of working before, and as 
none of the men who had been blaming the 
British laborer for the decadence of British 
trade had ever dreamed they could work. 
One reason was that Stewart is a practical 



man himself. He studied under his father, 
who was an architect, and then went out 
and worked at other trades. He can lay a 
brick and can cut stone and do carpenter- 
ing, as the men have discovered. 

The way in which he shook up the brick- 
laying part of the job is a fair specimen of 
the things he did to the men's long accus- 
tomed ways. When the work first began, 
bricks were being laid as they are laid 
everywhere in England, at a rate of about 
400 a day. There were no steam "hoists" 
for sending the brick up to the scaffolding, 
and the men were using stiff mortar. Un- 
der the new regime automatic "hoists" were 
set to work in a jiffy, and soft mortar was 
supplied to the men. 

Stewart explained to the men personally 
how, by using the American mortar, they 
could lay enough with one stretch of the 
trowel for six or a dozen bricks, and lay the 
bricks themselves by a light pressure of the 
hand and a light tap with the trowel, in- 
stead of by repeated hammering to force 
the brick into the stiff mortar. He told 
them to their horror and amazement that 
bricklayers in America laid 2,000 bricks a 
day and thought nothing of it. He had 
hardly got the words out of his mouth, how- 
ever, when one of the men contradicted him 
bluntly. He said he had been in America 
and he knew how bricks were laid there. 
Stewart, looking, as usual, as if he had just 
come out of a men's furnishing shop, witi. 
glossy derby, natty business suit, and pat- 
ent leather shoes, was standing on the 
ground and talking to the men on the scaf- 
folding above. He jumped for the ladder 
leaning against the building, and in four 
steps was standing on the scaffolding beside 
the man who had contradicted him. He 
rolled up his sleeves, and, filling a trowel 



SCIEXCE, INVENTIOX AXD DISCOVEBY 



205 



with mortar, he laid four complete rows of 
bricks with a deftness and dispatch that 
made the men's eyes stick out of their 
heads. Then he went on, but left an over- 
seer behind him to see that the men worked 
faster and faster. Little by little he got 
them along, until, finally, they, too, could 
and did lay 2,000 a day. Yet the London 
Coimty Council, the governing body of the 
metropolis, reported recently that the aver- 
age of bricklayers on municipal works was 
"over" 330 a day. 

The "boss" got just as striking results 
with the other men as with bricklayers. 
^Yhen he arrived the carpenters were aver- 



aging 500 feet of timber a day, and they 
finally averaged 1,000. The steel workers 
were doing their riveting by hand, and the 
union tried to make trouble; Stewart in- 
sisted that automatic riveters be used. In 
the beginning the men disposed of from 
ten to fifteen tons of steel a day; they 
learned to use up 100 tons. Their first rate 
of riveting was fifty rivets a day ; long after 
it was from 200 to 300. 

The work as originally ordered was done 
in ten months from the time the American 
"hustler" took hold, but the company made 
certain changes in the plans and extended 
the undertaking so that several months' 




NEW YORK DOCKS. 
Ocean Freight Vessels that carry our goods to foreign ports. 



206 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



additional work were required. Mr. Stew- 
art had an experience which, while finan- 
cially profitable and a valuable lesson to 
his English rivals, was trying to his own 
powers of endurance. Various liberal 
offers were made to him by important Lon- 
don institutions, urging him to stay and 
continue similar work in their behalf, but 
he declared that it was too big an under- 



taking for one man to revolutionize a whole 
country. "Mr. Westinghouse made it a 
big object for me to come over here," he 
said, "and I am going back from $30,000 
to $40,000 better off than when I came, but 
I said to him when the work was done, 
'you have had the best five years of my life, 
but you have had that all in one.' " 




HAST RIVER DOCKS, NEW YORK.— Vessels from foreign ports unloading cango. 



GIGANTIC OCEAN STEAMSHIPS 



Few people realize the great progress 
that has been made in ocean transportation, 
especially as regards the size of the ships 
and the care and comfort of passengers. 
Until the launching of the White Star 
steamship "Olympic," at Belfast, October 
20, 1910, the Cunarders "Lusitania" and 
"Mauretania" were the largest vessels 
afloat. These were twin ships, each 
790 feet long, 88 feet in width, 45,000 
tons displacement and 37% feet draught. 
Their proportions were regarded as 
Titanic. Then came the Olympic, which 
is 8821/2 feet in length, 921/2 feet in width, 
and 66,000 tons displacement, the greatest 
monster that has yet ridden the deep. Be- 
side the Olympic, the Great Eastern, which 
was discarded in 1889 as being too big and 



unwieldly, was a pigmy. The Great Eastern 
was only 692 feet in length and of 12,000 
tons displacement. There are few modern 
ocean passenger steamers which do not ex- 
ceed the Great Eastern in size and the 
Olympic is much larger in every way. The 
Cunard line has awarded to Brown & Co., 
of Clydebank, a contract for the building 
of a steamer which is to be 1,000 feet in 
length and of 90,000 h. p. It will dwarf the 
Olympic almost as much as the latter 
dwarfs the Great Eastern of 1889. 

For a steamer like the Lusitania, which 
is now of the second class, it requires 6,600 
tons of coal to supply the boilers for one 
trip. Such a ship carries 500 first-class, 500 
second-class, and 1,300 third-class passen- 
gers. The crew, consisting of sailors, engi- 




THE MODERN OCEAN LINER IS LONGER THAN THE GREAT AUDITORIUM AND ANNEX 

HOTELS COMBINED, 



208 



TEE WORLD'S WORKSHOP 








•■^W -d 390 

Fng neers - Dept 









Sailing Depf 



CREW REQUIRED TO OPERATE AN OCEAN PASSENGER STEAMER. 



neers, firemen, stewards, cooks, and other 
attendants, numbers 860. On one voyage 
(one way) across the Atlantic,' which is 
made in less than six days, the amount of 
food consumed is something enormous. The 
official figures are: 40 oxen, 130 pigs, SO 
sheep, 2,000 chickens, 150 turkeys, 350 
ducks, 90 geese, 10 calves, 200 pheasants, 
800 quail, 200 snipe, 250 grouse, 250 part- 
ridge, 400 pigeons, 20 kegs oysters, 10 boxes 



fresh herring, 12 barrels smoked herring, 84 
boxes haddock, 86 boxes bloaters, 1,500 lbs. 
salmon, 60 boxes kippers, 45 boxes fresh 
fish, 325 lbs. turtles, and fresh vegetables 
in proportion. 

The celebrated Marshall Field & Co.'s 
retail store in Chicago is the largest estab- 
lishment of the kind in the world. The 
Olympic is twice the length of this mam- 
moth store. 



i 


h- , ' , ._a 


hd^^m'^Jmm^- 



TWO MODERN OCEAN STEAMERS FILL THE SPAN uF BROOKLYN LRIDGI 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



203 



SHIPPING ON THE GREAT LAKES 



From the Atlantic Ocean to the very 
heart of the American continent, by way 
of the St. Lawrence Eiver and the Great 
Lakes, there is a commercial route over 
which traffic passes throughout the eight 
months of open navigation every year, so 
immense in its magnitude that it never fails 
to astonish those who consider it for the 
first time. From Niagara Falls to the sea 
this route is virtually uninterrupted for 
more than 1,000 miles, except by the short 
canals which are necessary to pass around 
the rapids of the St. Lawrence. Niagara 
Falls, however is an obstacle difficult to 



surmount, and although the Welland Canal, 
connecting Lake Erie and Lake Ontario, 
makes it possible for vessels to continue 
their journey, yet in practice not a great 
deal of the trade is carried through unin- 
terruptedly. 

From Buffalo to Duluth at the head of 
Lake Superior, and Chicago at the head 
of Lake Michigan, however, the travel 
routes are unbroken. Indeed there is no 
interruption in direct navigation among all 
the ports of the upper lakes, except that at 
Sault Ste. Marie the United States Gov- 
ernment has built a great canal lock, the 




IRON ORE DOCKS ON LAKE ERIE. 



210 



largest in the 
world, by the 
aid of whicli 
vessels over- 
c m e the 
twenty -one- 
foot differ- 
ence in level 
between Lake 
Superior and 
its lower 
neighbors. 

By way of 
Lake Supe- 
rior, Lake 
Michigan and 
Lake Huron 
come the im- 
mense s h i p- 
ments of agri- 
cultural and 
lumber prod- 
ucts from the 
numerous 
ports around 
their shores. 
E r m the 
Lake Superior 
region come 
the huge car- 
goes of iron 
ore and coj)- 
p e r from 
northern 
Michigan, 
W i s c n- 
sin and Min- 
nesota. Duluth 
and West Su- 
perior, at the 
head of this 
greatest lake, 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 




rem 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



211 





IRON MINE IN THE LAKE SUPERIOR REGION. 



also ship immense quantities of grain from 
the wheat fields of the northwest. It was 
at the shipyards of • West Superior that 
those peculiar craft, the "whalebacks," 
kno'wn to all lake men as the ''pigs," were 
built, and in them are carried millions of 
tons of grain, ore and coal every season. 
There is no trojible in finding return car- 
goes for vessels on the Great Lakes, whicH- 
ever way they sail. The great wheat, lum- 
ber and ore carriers from Lake Michigan 
and Lake Superior discharge their cargoes 
at Detroit, Cleveland, Erie or Buffalo, and 
return laden with coal or manufactured 
products, so that there is a constant ex- 
change between east and west, with profit 
to all interests concerned. 



Eew people realize that the traffic on the 
great lakes of North America is one of the 
largest industrial enterprises in the world. 
The commerce of such a port as Chicago is 
as great as that of New York. The volume 
of traffic passing up and down through 
the great canal connecting Lake Superior 
and Lake Huron at Sault Ste. Marie, is 
greater than that passing through the Suez 
Canal, and the traffic passing the city of 
Detroit on the Detroit River is much 
greater than the ocean traffic at the port of 
New York City. 

For a few months in the winter all this 
navigation system is closed by ice, and 
traffic is halted until the ice breaks up in 
tho spring. It is evident, therefore^ that 



212 



SCIENCE, IXVEXTIOX AND DISCOVERY 



the date of opening navigation is of great 
importance to tlie iinmeuse interests in- 
volved. So regular is the season, that 
steamship owners are ahle to calculate in 
advance about what time the first vessels 
ma J pass through the narrow channels con- 
necting the different lakes. But sometimes 
all rules fail. In the spring of 1901 navi- 
gation was closed by ice later in the season 
than it had been for fifty-seven years, or 
virtually since the trade of the lakes grew 
to important proportions. The April ice 
jams forbade communication between the 
upper and lower lakes until well into the 
month of May, a whole month later than 
the average date of opening. Of course, 
every day's delay meant great loss to ves- 
sel owners and those who were dependent 
upon shipments by water, and the total loss 
in this month of delay reached an enor- 
mous fig-ure. 

There are three places that are watched 
for the signs of opening navigation. These 
are, respectively; the St. Mary River, Avhich 
connects Lake Huron with Lake Superior ; 
the Straits of Mackinac, connecting Lake 
Michigan and Lake Huron, and the St. 
Clair River, connecting Lake Huron with 
Lake St. Clair, just above Detroit. The 
last of these being the farthest south_, is 
usually the first to open, and when vessels 
find a channel through the straits of Mack- 
inac, that is usually considered as a signal 
that navigation from the upper to the lower 
lakes is once more free. In 1901, hoAvever, 
although the Straits and the "Soo" were 
open to free navigation almost as early as 
usual, it was not possible to go from Lake 
Huron into the lower lakes. A succession 
of northeast winds carried the great ice 
■floes of Lake Huron into the southern ex- 
tremity of the lake, where they packed and 



jammed instead of melting and scattering 
in open waters, as they would have done 
under other circumstances. The current 
of the lakes flowing into the St. Clair River 
at this point aided the winds in blocking up 
the narrow channel, and the result was that 
a solid mass of ice accumulated at the foot 
of Lake Huron, perhaps fifteen by twenty- 
five miles. The jam extended into the St. 
Clair River, which is about thirty miles 
long, and for weeks that stream was packed 
solidly with the great cakes of ice. 

All the vessels which had sailed irout 
ports on Lake Michigan and Lake Superior 
were blocked by ice jams above, and all 
those from the lower lakes were held at 
Detroit, unable to go farther up stream. It 
was not until April 29 that one boat got 
through to Detroit from the upper lakes, 
and two days later fourteen came through. 
After that the jam packed solidly again, 
and it did not finally open until the 8th 
of May. In the St. Clair River itself, and 
in the narrow canal which extends from 
the mouth of the river into deep water in 
Lake St. Clair, the ice cakes had actually 
filled the stream from top to bottom until a 
great dam was formed. Above the jam 
the water rose, but below fell so far that in 
Lake St. Clair and the Detroit River navi- 
gation w^as greatly embarrassed by the shal- 
low water. 

Although the commercial loss by tbis un- 
fortunate delay was great, the people who 
lived on the St. Clair River and in Detroit 
and other neighboring cities had some rec- 
ompense in the picturesque and interest- 
ing conditions that existed. On shore the 
season was almost summerlike, with flow- 
ers, grass and foliage as far advanced as 
ever in early May. Excursionists by the 
hundreds came out on the electric cars that 



SCIEXCE, IXVEXTIOX AXD DISCOVERY 213 

run along the river bank, wearing their some instances badly damaged, and others 

summer suits and straw hats, to see the were left aground. Altogether the condi- 

marvelous masses of ice that were blockad- tions were memorable, and those who had 

ing the commerce of the lakes. Scores of occasion to deal with the lake traffic at that 

great vessels were held captive for from one time earnestly hope that nature may play 

to four weeks, some of them above or below no more such tricks upon them, 
the ice I'ams, and others in the very midst. 

•' ' -^ AREA OF THE GREAT LAKES OF THE 

The latter experienced all the sensations united states. 

of Arctic exploration, cut off from shore perior. 'igany Huron. Erie. Ontario. 

,, , 1 ,1 , Greatest length in 

as they were, except when they sent men miles 390 345 2:0 250 190 

/ ' -11 T I- ^ Greatest breadth in 

to make perilous trips back and forth over miles 160 S4 105 eo 52 

■^ '■ Greatest depth in 

the ice for nrovisions ^^^^ ^oo i.soo i.ooo 204 412 

LUL itc J.U1 piUMbiuiis. Area in square miles 32,200 22.400 23,000 10,000 6,700 

When the jams finally began to break, and ^m&..'° ..T".%5,ooo 70.040 74,000 39,680 29,760 

the glacier-like masses began to race down "lefefin ^elf . . .^.'l^' eoo 578 574 564 234 

• ,1 1 1 u • ^1 • Latitude, degrees ) 46° 45' 40^15' 43° 20' 41° 20' 43° 10' 

stream again, the vessels held m their north /4s°50' 46° 55' 60° lo' 42° 50' 44° lo' 

, , , ^ ^. . , , T-N 1 Longitude, degrees j 84° 30' 84° 40' 80° 10^ 78° 35' 76° 20' 

clutch were at times m great danger. Docks west 1 92° is' 87° os' 84° so' 83° w 79° 50' 

. Boundary lines 300 None 220 200 160 

along the shore were torn to pieces, vessels united states shore 

° ■■- ' line in miles 9oo 1,320 510 370 230 

were dragged from their moorings and in 




PASSENGER STEAMER SHOOTING THE LACHINE RAPIDS ON THE ST. LAWRENCE RIVER. 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



21 7i 



PROGRESS IN METHODS OF NAVAL WARFARE 



' If it be true that the most certain way to 

put an end to warfare is to make war more 
terrible, we should include the Krupps, the 
Gatlings and the Maxims in the list of our 
true promoters of peace. Improved artil- 
lery, rifles, armor plate and explosives have 
been devised of late years with a rapidity 
not second to industrial inventions. 

The world's naval wisdom received a sur- 
prise and a shock when Ericsson's little 
iron-sided Monitor fought its duel with the 
ponderous Merrimac, ribbed with railroad 
iron. American ingenuity, both north and 
south, had grappled with the problem of 
invulnerable warship construction, ignor- 
ing absolutely all other naval architects of 



the world and their cumbrous lore. Slow- 
going conservatism had to be abandoned, 
and the old wooden hulks then constituting 
the navies of the earth's great powers were 
doomed to the scrap heap. 

Since that time there has been a con- 
stant rivalry between the ship-builder and 
armorer on the one hand, and the gun, gun- 
powder and projectile manufacturer on the 
other hand. Every improvement in armor 
plate has been met by a further advance, 
cither in the gun, the projectile, or the pro- 
pelling charge of the gunpowder. An 
armor-maker would announce the produc- 
tion of a steel plate which no existing can- 
non could penetrate. Then the projectiles 




LAUNCHING OF THE "CONSTITUTION," FAMED IN AMERICAN HISTORY. 



218 



SCIENCE, IXVEXTIOX AND DISCOVERY 



were made conical, and witli a sharp point, 
having a fine temper, and the gun was rifl.ed 
to give the projectile rotation and true 
flight, and the guns were made to load at 
the breech instead of the muzzle, adding 
greatly to the rapidity and facility of fire. 
Another inventor then came forward with 
a method of hardening the surface of the 
plate, by a process bearing his name A 
Harveyized plate is so hard that it cannot 
be scratched with a file or cut with a cold 
chisel. Xickel was put in the plate, add- 
ing still more to its hardness and toughness. 
Then smokeless powder was produced, de- 



veloping much greater energy than its black 
predecessor, and made to burn with accel- 
erating combustion, and with it projectiles 
could be hurled with such velocity that the 
energy of their impact could not be resisted 
by the plate, and the gun had to be length- 
ened and strengthened forward to meet the 
new demands upon it. The limit in the 
weight of armor plate was soon reached. 
Twelve inches in thickness came to be about 
the maximum for the belt of the strongest 
warship, for she could not carry thicker and 
float. The projectile was still more im- 
proved, being made of the finest forged steel 




TEST OP ARMOR PLATE FOR AN AMERICAN MAN-OF-WAR. 



SCIENCE, IXVENTIOX AND DISCOVERY 



219 



and tempered with great skill. Then came 
Kruppized plate, and the projectile was 
again turned aside or smashed upon its sur- 
face. Lastly a soft nose made of mild steel 
was placed on the point of the armor-pierc- 
ing projectile, and the gunner could again 
laugh at the thickest Kruppized plate that 
could be carried by the battleship. 

Contemporaneous with this work, the 
high-explosive manufacturer and inventor 



to learn by experiment. It was believed by 
many that high explosives must of neces- 
sity be very ticklish, and that their sensi- 
tiveness must be in direct proportion to 
their explosive power. The word dynamite 
was sufficient to cause a person oi average 
information to seek safety in flight from its 
vicinity. It was generally believed that if 
high explosives could only be thrown in any 
considerable quantity from guns they 




THE FASTEST SHIP AFLOAT. 
The British torpedo-boat destroyer "Viper," steaming at 38 knots, or more than 43 land miles, an hour. 



have been busy, but so burdened has been 
their work by popular misunderstandings 
of the nature of the high explosives, that 
they have had a much stronger barrier in 
the form of prejudice and ignorance to get 
through than has the gun manufacturer in 
keeping ahead of the armorer. 

There was such a wholesale dread enter- 
tained by even rational investigators, and 
some inventors themselves, of high explo- 
sives, that they chose rather to theorize than 



would destroy anything they might hit, or 
if they should strike in the water anywhere 
near a warship it would be sent to the bot- 
tom. But it was thought that guns must 
be constructed in some peculiar way, and 
a propelling means especially adapted to 
lessen the shock be employed for throwing 
some special kind of bomb, in order to get 
the dynamite out of the gun very gently. 

The most notorious of these freaks in 
ordnance is the so-called pneumatic dyna- 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



221 



mite gun, a battery of which guns was 
erected at Sandy Hook and protected -at 
great expense, and a similar battery was put 
up at San Francisco. The expense of these 
outfits was enormous, and absolutely to no 
purpose whatever. Their range is limited 
to about a mile and a half. The projectile 
has no power of penetration whatever, and 



safety within close gunshot of these bat- 
teries and bombard them out of existence, 
and it would be impossible for the pneu- 
matic guns to get a single shot within half 
a mile of any of the battleships. 

In 1899 Gen. A. E. Buffington, the Chief 
of Ordnance of the United States Army, 
determined to thoroughly investigate the 




PLACING A BIG GUN ON BOARD A BATTLESHIP. 

This extraordinary gun, 36 feet 8 inches long, has a range of 14.000 yards, or eight miles. It fires a 

shot weighing more than half a ton with a charge of 650 pounds of powder. 



must necessarily go off on impact outside 
of an object, should the gunner be so lucky 
as to hit anything with it; but the angle 
of fire is so high, and the range so short, 
that the question of hitting an enemy's bat- 
tleship with one of these weapons can be 
no longer seriously considered. A fleet of 
modern battleships could lie with perfect 



subject of high explosives, and he arranged 
that the Ordnance Board, with headquar- 
ters at Sandy Hook Proving Ground, New 
Jersey, should carry out a line of experi- 
ments in such a thorough and eflBcient man- 
ner as to settle once for all what known high 
explosives were the most suitable for use 
in the service, and also to test thoroughly, 



222 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 




COALING A BATTLESHIP AT SEA. 



and without partiality, any and all new 
high explosives which might be submitted 
by different inventors and manufacturers, 
provided they appeared to offer sufficient 
merit to warrant investigation. 

MAXIMITE, THE NEW EXPLOSIVE. 

Maximite, which was adopted by the 
Government, satisfactorily stood every test 
to which it was subjected. It is very inex- 
pensive of manufacture ; has a fusion point 
below the temperature of boiling water; 
cannot be exploded from ignition, and, in- 
deed, cannot be heated hot enough to ex- 
plode, for it will boil away like water 
without exploding. It is, therefore, per- 
fectly safe to melt over an open fire for fill- 
ing projectiles, in the same manner that 
asphalt is melted in a street caldron. 
Should the material by any chance catch on 



fire, it would simply burn away like 
asphalt, without exploding. When cast into 
shells, it not only solidifies into a dense, 
hard incomprehensible mass on cooling, but 
it expands and sets hard upon the walls of 
the projectile like sulphur^ that is to say, 
in the same way as water does in freezing. 
Hiram Maxim, the inventor of this ex- 
plosive, describes its effects as follows, and 
adds his opinions on the tendencies of mod- 
ern warfare : "When a shell filled with it 
btrikes armor-plate, the Maximite does not 
shift a particle, and it is so insensitive that 
it not only stands the shock of penetration 
of the thickest armor-plate which the shell 
itself can go through, but it will not ex- 
plode, even if the projectile breaks upon the 
plate. In one experiment a six-pounder pro- 
jectile, filled with Maximite, fired against 
a thick plate, entered the plate about 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



223 



half its length and upset — that is to say, 
shortened nearly two inches and burst 
open at the side, and some of the Maximite 
was forced through the aperture and the 
projectile rebounded from the plate about 
200 feet and struck in the front of the gun 
from which it was fired, and all without 
exploding. Some lyd- 
dite shells — that is to 
say, shells charged 
with picric acid, the 
high explosive adopted 
by the British Gov- 
ernment, — filled in the 
same way as was Max- 
imite, into the same 
kind of projectiles and 
fired at a thin plate 
an inch and a half in 
thickness, all exploded 
on impact. So insen- 
sitive is this high ex- 
plosive that melted 
castironmaybe poured 
upon a mass of it 
without causing an explosion. The 
writer has repeatedly made this experiment. 
^Mien a projectile, however, charged with 
]\Iaximite, is armed with a proper detonat- 
ing fuse, such as that used in these experi- 
ments, the invention of a United States 
Army officer, it is exploded with such ter- 
rific violence that a 12-inch armor-piercing 
projectile was broken into at least 10,000 
fragments; 7,000 were actually recovered. 
This armor-piercing projectile, weighing 
1;000 pounds, was filled with seventy 
pounds of ]\Iaximite, armed with a fuse, 
and burned in the sand. After exploding, 
the sand was sifted to obtain the fragments. 
There were other high explosives tested 
with ISIaximite, which also produced re- 



markable results. Had not Maximite been 
invented, the Ordnance Board would still 
have in its possession a high explosive de- 
veloped by the Army Department itself, far 
superior to anything that has ever been em- 
ployed in any other country, and the work 
of that Board for the last two years would 




FACTORY FOR HIGH EXPLOSIVES SHOWING EARTHEN WALLS, TO 
PROTECT AGAINST DISASTERS. 



have still been highly rewarded. Maximite 
has been adopted for the sole reason that it 
fulfills the largest number of the highest 
requirements sought for by the Ordnance 
Board." 

Not since the lesson taught by Ericsson's 
Monitor has anything been accomplished in 
military science more pregnant with mean- 
ing than these results at Sandy Hook. 
They have demonstrated that nothing what- 
ever can be made to float with armor which 
will be capable of withstanding the destruc- 
tive effects of Maximite shells thrown from 
modem high-power guns, which are capable 
of penetrating the thickest Kruppized 
plates, to explode into a battleship. 

Should the United States now become in- 



224 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



volved in war with any other great power, 
we should be able to throw these high ex- 
plosive projectiles through the thickest 
armor of our enemies, to explode inside 
their warships, while they, in turn, would 
be able to penetrate our armor with solid 
shot, or, at least, with projectiles carrying 
no bursting charge whatever. 

Mr, Maxim also says: "The moral 
taught by these new developments is that 
the ponderous battleships must go and be 
replaced by the small, swift torpedo boat or 
torpedo gunboat and cruiser, and practic- 
ally unarmored, as no protection whatever 
can avail against such missiles. There 
must be no sacrifice of mobility for cumber- 
some armor. While Maximite places this 
government far in the lead of any other 
power in its weapons of offense and de- 
fense, it will, as well, save this government 
many hundreds of millions of dollars 
which should otherwise have been expended 
in the building of unwieldy battleships, for 
which other powers have squandered fabu- 
lous sums, and which must soon be recog- 
nized as obsolete. The competition between 
the great powers for naval and military 
supremacy is about as keen as it could be in 
an actual state of Avar, and the drain upon 
their resources is enormous, and the burden 
year by year is growing heavier. It is 
problematical whether England, France or 
Germany would prove the stronger in the 
event of war, and it is equally problematical 
which can longest endure the ever increas- 
ing drain upon its resources as a measure 
of insurance in the event of hostilities. 
And there is another problem — and one of 
vast concern — and it is whether these stu- 
pendous preparations are altogether wise 
on present lines ; but no power dares to de- 
viate tQO far from the main course pursued 



by the other powers for fear of making an 
irreparable mistake, and so big battleship 
Ijuilding still goes on, with a sort of half- 
awakened consciousness that these craft 
will prove a source of weakness rather than 
of strength. 

"Along with the ponderous, armor-clad 
battleship, we have seen developed means 
for its destruction, so that to-day it holds 
no higher place with respect to invulnera- 
bility in face of these means, than did the 
wooden hulk of a half century ago in the 
face of the weapons then used. Indeed, it 
is probable that the modern battleship,' cost- 
ing five or six millions of dollars, will be 
in still greater danger of being sent to the 
bottom in a modern naval engagement than 
was the wooden craft of ISTelson's time. 

"Let us consider what will be the chief 
forces that will oppose the battleship and 
oppose one another in the next great naval 
engagement. First, there will be the tor- 
pedo boat and the torpedo boat destroyer, 
capable of traveling at a speed double that 
of the battleship, armed with Whitehead 
automobile torpedoes, which launched be- 
low the water lines will run beneath the 
surface as straight as an arrow to deal the 
battleship a fatal blow below its armored 
protection. There will also be the sub- 
marine boat, similarly armed, which has 
already shown itself capable of stealing up- 
on the battleship wholly unobserved, to deal 
it a deadly blow, even in the glare of noon, 
as well as at the dead of night. And there 
will be another form of torpedo craft, 
armed with automobile torpedoes, which 
will run upon the surface of the water like 
an ordinary torpedo boat, but at railroad 
speed, and which will dive to a semi-sub- 
merged position when coming within the 
range of the enemy's guns. Half a dozen 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



225 



torpedoes will be launched by it in a mo- 
ment, and the little boat will be endangered 
only by the huge vortexical gulf down 
which the battleship takes its plunge to the 
bottom of the sea. 

"K'ow that a high explosive has been de- 
veloped, which is capable of withstanding 



ton or more of high explosive at high 
velocity, to explode and crush the walls of 
the battleship or demolish its superstruct- 
ure, or, if falling in the water, to crush 
in the sides below the armored belt. Each 
of these systems will have its advantages 
over the other, and will also have its dis- 




ARMORED BOAT FOR RIVER SERVICE IN CENTRAL, AFRICA. 



the shock of penetration of the hardest steel 
wall of the biggest armor-clad, to explode 
in vital parts, the battleship has another and 
most formidable antagonist. By means of 
this invention the destructiveness of the 
present high-power gun is enormously in- 
creased. There will be two systems of guns 
and projectiles employed — the one the pres- 
ent quick-firing, high-power cannon, throw- 
ing armor-piercing projectiles carrying rela- 
tively small bursting charges of high explo- 
sives, to explode on the interior of the war- 
ship, or within the armor, to rip it from the 
sides. The other will be the torpedo gun, 
throwing aerial torpedoes carrying half a 



advantages. While the large quantity of 
explosive carried in the aerial torpedo will 
be capable of working wide destruction 
when landing fairly on the mark, yet the 
quick-firing cannon, with equal range, and 
able to fire many times as fast, with pro- 
jectiles capable of penetrating the strongest 
armor, to explode inside, will remain no 
mean rival to the torpedo gun, and any and 
all other forms of attack. 

NAVAI BATTLES IN THE EUTiniE. 

"The first and most important lesson 
which will be learned from the next great 
naval battle will be that armored protection 



226 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



will not protect, and the fight will soon be 
a duel between battleships at long range, 
aided by various forms of torpedo boats, 
and light unarmored cruisers, throwing high 
explosives ; and these latter will be the fac- 
tors which will determine the fight. The 
heavy armorclad will be discredited, and 
then will be a wild scramble by the nations 
in the endeavor to make up for the lost time 
wasted on its construction, and light and 
very swift unprotected war vessels will be 
constructed, depending for their safety up- 
on their speed, and upon their own ability 
to strike death-dealing blows. These are 
the true principles which must, sooner or 
later, be recognized. 

"The British Government now proposes 
building still larger and heavier battleships 
and, of course, enormously more expensive. 
AVithin the next decado, and sooner, in the 
event of the great war, this will be learned 
by the British War Office to be a great mis- 
take. The writer pointed out some years 
ago that the introduction of gunpowder 
was long opposed on grounds Avhich, accord- 
ing to twentieth century ideas, are su- 
premely ridiculous. To us moderns noth- 
ing could be more apparent than the supe- 
riority of firearms over bows and arrows as 
weapons of war. A few years hence, the 
present panorama of the nations will ap- 
pear ludicrous, vying with one another for 
naval and military supremacy, and exhaust- 
ing their treasiiries in the construction of 
huge battleships, a dozen of which will be 
sunk by a torpedo fleet costing no more than 
one of them. Such battleship destroyers 
are now an accomplished fact, and lie under 
the eyes of all the world to-day, but are not 
seen. Their merits are told into ears that 
are as deaf as death. It is like knocking at 
the doors of an empty house for admission. 



Only the issue of a great naval battle can 
bring the torpedo fleet into proper recogni- 
tion. 

"When firearms were first introduced, 
the foot-soldier was clothed in armor, which 
was constantly increased in weight and 
thickness to resist improved weapons, until 
it became so ponderous and unwieldy as to 
sadly interfere with mobility. It was 
found impossible, however, for the soldier 
to carry armor thick enough to protect him 
against missiles hurled by gunpowder. As 
a result, all the armor was discarded. The 
modern war vessel has now entered upon a 
similar phase of its evolution, and for ex- 
actly the same reason that the soldier was 
obliged 'to discard his armor, so will armor 
have to be sacrificed in the coming war ves- 
sel, and the most practical means of de- 
fense will then be found to consist in the 
very means which serve best for offense." 

The naval authorities of most of the 
maritime powers have studied with great 
interest the progress of experiments in sub- 
marine craft. Inventors for years have 
been endeavoring to perfect vessels that 
could be submerged and still propelled and 
controlled with safety to their occupants. 
This series of investigations has been en- 
couraged by the governments with some 
spirit of rivalry as to which country should 
first obtain such a practicable craft. In 
our own country the vessel known as the 
Holland, named for its inventor, has 
achieved remarkable success and has been 
adopted by the government as a worthy ad- 
junct to our coast defense. The vessel trav- 
els at fair speed on the surface, may be 
submerged for several hours without dis- 
comfort or danger to its crew, and can 
travel slowly under water, so that it may 
advance clandestinely upon an enemy with- 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



2271 




THE "HOLLAND" AT FULL SPEED ON THE SURFACE. 



out danger of discovery. For launcliing 
torpedoes against the side of a battleship 
without danger to the attacking party, such 
craft have every advantage. They have 
not been perfected yet to a degree that en- 
ables them to make long voyages, but the 
present success is sufficient to promise great 
improvements in the future. 

THE STTBMAEINE VESSEL. 

The French experiments have been suc- 
cessfully achieved through the skill and 
genius of Gustave Zade, an inventor of 
Toulon, who has built two interesting craft 
of which the latest, named for himself, is 
the most successful. This latter boat is 
147 feet long and is propelled by electric 
motors with storage batteries. The hull is 
cigar-shaped, with very sharp ends, and the 
speed is cight-and-a-half knots an hour be- 
low, and fourteen knots above the surface. 
A crew of ten men is carried, with com- 
pressed air, stored in tanks, enough to last 
them while below. Torpedoes may be dis- 
charged from an opening in the bow of the 
boat. This vessel has been operated in 
deep and shallow water with remarkable 
success, and has made trips up to seventy 
miles without difficulty. All of these sub- 



draft armed 

to a high 

British in 

an armored 

canoe is a 

steam launch, covered 



marine craft are oper- 
ated on the same gen- 
eral principle, being 
sunk by admitting 
water to tanks pro- 
vided for the purpose, 
and raised to the sur- 
face again by the 
buoyancy of these 
tanks when the water 
is pumped out. 

For warfare in the 
interior of uncivilized 
countries, the light- 
vessel also has been brought 
degree of adaptability. The 
Africa use what they term 
canoe, although the word 
misnomer. It is a heavy 
with boiler iron, 



and with shields to protect the men and 
the rapid-firing machine guns which it 
carries. Such a boat can penetrate the Af- 
rican jungles by way of the rivers and can 
assist in campaigns against savage tribes 
who could with difficulty be reached at all 
by the trails through the forests. The 
United States, like other powers, utilizes 
light-draft gunboats for service in the 
rivers and archipelagoes of the Asiatic 
coasts, and the Pacific islands where such 
service is needed. The rivers of China and 
Korea, at the time of native attacks on 
foreigners, have been the frequent scene of 
such operations. 

In order to still more facilitate the oper- 
ations of warships at sea, a device has been 
invented by which the fighting craft may 
take coal without making port. Wire cables 
are strung between the masthead of the 
battleship and the collier, and upon these 
cables iron baskets are hauled back and 



228 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



forth until the coal is transferred. This is 
an application of the trolley system by 
which ore and coal are conveyed from 
mines to cars for shipment, where valleys 
and hills intervene. Experiments with this 
method of coaling have been made in the 
American navy and in the British navy, 
and in moderately rough weather forty 
tons per hour have been taken aboard a 
battleship from a collier. With practice it 
is believed that this speed can be greatly 
increased, and such embarrassments as ham- 
pered the American navy in the Caribbean 
during the late war will be eliminated. 

The improvements in the appliances of 
warfare thus briefly indicated are typical 
of others upon which students of the arts 
of war are engaged. In these ante-millen- 
nium times, war is occasionally a neces- 
sary contingency, and when it comes we 
want the best tools we can get to fight with. 




SUBMARINE BOAT "HOLLAND" DIVING. 



It is a crime for a nation not to be pre- 
pared for war, a crime against those who 
will be called upon to defend her in time 
of war. It is a crime for a nation not to 
be abreasi of the times in arms and equip- 
ment. At best war is cruelty, but it is not 
only often a necessity but unavoidable, and, 
once engaged in, should be made as destruct- 



ive as possible, in order that It may be brief 
as possible, thus minimizing the evil in the 
aggregate. 

The approximate dates of the completion 
of the new battleships and cruisers of the 
United States were given by the Secretary 
of the Navy at the beginning of 1902 as 
follows : battleships : Maine, October, 1902 ; 
Missouri, March, 1903 ; Ohio, May, 1903 ; 
Virginia, May, 1904; l^ebraska, July, 
1904; Georgia, July, 1904; Rhode Island, 
July, 1904. Armored cruisers: Pennsyl- 
vania, January, 1904; West Virginia, Feb- 
ruary, 1904; California, August, 1904; 
Colorado, January, 1904; Maryland, Feb- 
ruary, 1904 ; South Dakota, August, 1904. 
With the completion of the above, the 
navy will have seventeen battleships and 
eight armored cruisers. The total number 
of warships of all kinds under construction 
at the same date was fifty-nine, including 
besides those m e n - 
tioned, nine cruisers, 
four monitors, twenty- 
five torpedo boat de- 
stroyers, nine torpedo 
boats and seven sub- 
marines. In addition 
to these, the navy in 
commission at the same 
date included eleven 
men-of-war of the first 
rate, meaning above 8,- 
000 tons ; fifteen of the 
second rate, or between 4,000 and 8,000 
tons, and about eighty of less size, including 
monitors, cruisers, gun-boats and torpedo 
boats. The best calculations therefore credit 
the United States with being fourth among 
the powers in naval strength, surpassed 
only by England, France and Eussia, and 
followed by Germany, Italy and Japan. 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



229 



FLOATING DOCKS FOR MEN-OF-WAR 



The immense increase in the size of men- 
of-war in the last few years has compelled 
the rapid increase of repair and supply 
and equipment stations wherever such ves- 
sels are to sail. The navy without proper 
equipment would be as bad as no navy at 
nil, and so every country has found it neces- 
sary to seek a favorable location for coal- 
ing stations all over the world. In time of 
war, the fighting ships of the hostile pow- 
ers are limited in their privileges in neutral 
ports. For instance, they are permitted to 
take on board only sufiicient coal to enable 
them to steam to the nearest port of their 
own country, and that privilege can not be 
duplicated at a later time during the prog- 
ress of hostilities. Powerful and threaten- 
ing as a great battleship is, there can be 
nothing more helpless than such a craft 



either out of coal or disabled for want of 
some facility of repair. 

The prime requisite for well-equipped 
navy yards is a dock in which even the 
largest vessels may rest while they are being 
overhauled. There are two types of such 
docks, the drydock which is built on land, 
with gates by which the water may be ad- 
mitted and released at .will, and floating 
docks, for use where the other type is not 
available. Like other powers, the United 
States has found it necessary to extend its 
docking facilities, and the great structure 
pictured herewith is the newest one of all. 
This floating dock is located at Algiers, 
across the Mississippi River from New Or- 
leans, although such craft may be taken 
from port to port at will. In the illustra- 



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FLOATING DOCK SHOWING BATTLESHIP ILLINOIS IN PLACE. 
This dock was built by the Government for use at New Orleans. 



230 SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



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LAUNCHING A GREAT FLOATING DOCK. 

This dock was constructed at Wallsend-on-Tyne, for use in 



tion, the new battleship Illinois is seen in 
the dock high out of the water. 

In spite of the great size of the floating 
dock, the method of its use is simple enough. 
The general shape of the peculiar structure, 
if it were cut right through to show a sec- 
tion, is that of a great letter U, but on the 
outside it is rectangular, the curve of the 
IT occurring only on the inside. The great 
bottom and sides of it are hollow, and under 
ordinary circumstances it floats high on the 
water. When it is desired to take a vessel 
into the dock, the great pontoons, which are 
enclosed in the bottom and the lower part 
of the sides, are pumped full of water, so 
that it sinks to whatever depth is required 
to permit the admission of the ship. With 
the end gates open, the ship is now moved 
cautiously into the dock, and braced in 
place, after which the water is pumped out 
of the pontoons. As the dock rises, of 
course the vessel rises with it, until at last 
it is entirely uncovered and ready for what- 
ever repairs are necessary. In order to re- 
lease the ship from this position, the same 
process is reversed. In the picture, one 



obtains a striking view of the bottom and 
bow of the Illinois and its projecting "ram." 
The peculiar trusses extending from the 
side of the dock to shore are hinged at 
each end so that although the dock may 
rise and fall with the tide or the weight of 
vessels, it still maintains its position in 
reference to the shore. Another new float- 
ing dock which came into service for the 
American navy is the one at Havana, 
which was built at Birkenhead for the 
Spanish Government in 1887, and cost 
nearly $600,000. 

The other illustration shows the launch 
of a new floating dock constructed in Eng- 
land for use in Bermuda. This dock is 
545 feet long, the side walls are fifty-three 
feet high, and the total width of the struct- 
ure is 130 feet, with 100 feet between the 
walls. This dock is capable of lifting out 
of the water a ship 17,500 tons in weight, 
and drawing thirty-two feet of water. This 
dock cost $1,150,000, of which $175,000 
measured the cost of towing it across the 
Atlantic Ocean to Bermuda. 



SCIENCE, TNVENTION AND DTSCOVERf 



231 



THE FIRST CABLE ACROSS THE PACIFIC OCEAN 



Now that the political and commercial 
sway of the United States extends far into 
the Orient, it is necessary to connect the 
nation with its remote dependencies by 
steamship lines and submarine cables under 
our own control, so that communication 
may be uninterrupted at all times. Steam- 
ship lines, in fact, are already established 
between the Pacific coast of the United 
States and our island possessions of Ha- 
waii, Samoa, Guam and the Philippines. 
In order to accomplish the other purpose. 
Uncle Sam is about to spend 9,000,000 
good American dollars for copper wire, 
gutta percha, jute 3'arn, tar, and steel wire. 
Wlien this money has been spent and a fleet 
of ships and a thousand electricians and 
engineers have finished their work, the 
Philippines and the United States will be 
within half a minute's talking distance of 
each other. 

The cable which will establish this com- 
munication will be the first to span the Pa- 
cific, and almost triple the length of the 
longest submarine wire ever laid. From 
San Francisco to Manila, with stops at 
Guam and Honolulu, the distance is nearly 
8,000 miles. 

The making of this great stretch of cable 
is a colossal task. About 22,740 tons of 
material will be required — 1,980 tons of 
copper wire, 12,000 tons of steel wire, 
2,300 tons of jute yarn, 4,300 tons of com- 
pound and tar, and 1,260 tons of gutta 
percha. This means a total weight greater 
than that of forty-eight locomotives of 
standard size. 

Most people know in a vague, general 
■way that the submarine wire is about an 



inch thick^ and that it resembles, more than 
anything else, the underground cable which 
in some cities operates the cable cars. Few 
people, however, have any idea of the inner 
construction or of the ingenious processes 
by which the delicate copper wires that 
carry the electric current are so protected 
that they lie for years and years on the oozy 
bed of the ocean, and do their work with 
practical immunity from breaks, accidents 
or interruptions of any kind. 

The cable is composed of three parts : the 
copper strand; the hemp, tar and rubber 
casing which protects them from the water, 
and the heavy steel binding that acts as a 
shield against rocks, wreckage, the keels 
of ships, and the sharp teeth of ocean mon- 
sters. 

The first step in the making of a sub' 
marine cable is the preparation of the cop- 
per wire. After the wire has been weighed 
and tested it is taken to the winding drums. 
Here it is rapidly reeled around large, 
spool-like devices called bobbins. From 
the winding room the wire goes to the 
stranding room. Here the seven wires are 
twisted together and united on the cable 
stranding machines. 

The thin metal threads which are des- 
tined to flash under the water messages for 
which, perchance, a world will wait breath- 
less, are now ready for their first sheath- 
ing. This consists of insulating material, 
jute being usually employed. 

In applying the jute water is used, and 
as the least moisture would render the cable 
useless, a very careful and thorough system 
of drying is employed. The jute-covered 
wires go through vacuum drying-boxes, 



^('ii':\(i<:, iNVicsTios and DiscovFjn' 



233 



which cvaporato tho last, vostige of moisturt!. 
From tho drying-lxjxes the win; passes to 
caldrons fillod wiUi insulating inatcri:il. 
lien; the wire is allowed to steep until I he 
covering has hecome so thoroughly iini)r(;g- 
nated that there is no chance of any of the 
electric current l(;aking out, after the cahh; 
has finally been consigned to its watery 
resting place. The first stage of the work 
is now completed. 

Xext comes the making of the gutta 
percha jacket. Despite its great cost, gutta 
percha will be used in the Pacific cable, for 
it has been found to give a better result 
than any other form of casing. From tin)(! 
to time cablf! manufactun^rs have utilize<l 
various rubber compounds as substitutes. 
'I'licHe all have to be vulcanized by Ix'atiiig 
and kneading with sidphur or some sul- 
I ill uric j)reparation, to deprive the rubber 
of its adhesive; qualiti(!S. F>en at their best 
none of the ruljber compounds has been 
found to equal gutta percha. 

In prcj)aring gutta percha the mass of 
the ci-iide material is first heated and 
kneaded hy a sp(;cial process, till it becomes 
{)lastic. The softxjned, pliable heap is then 
taken to the jjress, where it is to be; united 
with the copper cable wire. By the use of 
suitable nozzles the gutta percha is deftly 
pressed around the strands in the form of 
a seamless jaekef. Here again the greatest 
care is taken to have the covering air-tight , 
and moisture-proof; U)V the htast droj) of 
water finding its way into the vvlr(! would 
produce; disastrous results. 

Now the cable, consisting, at the; pr(;sent 
stage of its construction, of the copper wire 
strands and jute and gutta percha cover- 
ings, passes over rollers, partly through the 
open air and partly through a long tank 
contaiain^f :irater, Tho purpose of the lat- 



ter is to harden the gutta percha. The 
cable is then subjected to a final rigid test, 
and if the insulation is perfect it passes to 
\\\c arinaturing d(;parlment. The second 
stage; is finished. 

The third and final pivjce-ss is adminis- 
tered by the armaturing inachine'. 'Vu this 
powerful contrivance is allotted the task e>f 
j)utting on the shield of steel wire. The; 
big machine works with an almost human 
intelligence and handles the heavy ropes of 
steel wire; as deftly and as easily as a sew- 
ing machine manipulates threads of ce)tton. 
Over the metal casing is spun a protecting 
fibre;, whie^h is then impreignated with in- 
sulating material. It is tlie purpe>se of this 
insulated fibre; to protect the armature from 
the' eIe;Htre>ying effe;cts of the earth and 
wate-r. Afte-r being drawn through a bath 
of lime; wa(e;r, which de;strejys the adhe;sive- 
ness of the; impreignafeid fibre, the cable is 
wound upon large woode;n rolls and is 
ready to be; take;n on shipljoard. In so far 
as human genius can make it so, the cable 
is prot:ect,eel against any injury from the 
e;le;ments or the elcnizens of the deep. 

Much of the work preliminary \>) the lay- 
ing of the cable has already been done. The 
United Statf;s ship Nero has taken prob- 
ably a thousand soundings to determine the 
ele;pths anel (!haract(;r of the; bottom from 
e)ur western coast to the Philippines. 

Fenir vesse;ls, each having cable tanks 
ff)rty fe-et in eliame;te'r anel he)hling abe)ut 
1,000 mlle-s of <-ahle', will do tlie we)rk of 
lutneling over the; wire te> (jld Neptune's cm- 
braeie-. 

When the cable; is finishe;el, a gre;ate!r step 
toward the pacification of the Filipine)s 
than the despatching ejf re;gitnents of sol- 
diers will have been taken. Through 
reae^ly communication the natives can more 



234 



SCIENCE, INYENTTOX AND DTSCOYERY 



readily be made to understand the charac- 
ter and purposes of the American people. 
The convenience the cable will be to .l.e 
business man and the impetus it will give 
to the transpacific commerce are almost 
past computation. 

At the present time, if a San Erancisco 
merchant wants to communicate "with Auck- 
land, New Zealand (the most expensive 
place in the world to reach by wire), the 
message transmitted must travel across the 
United States from San Francisco to "Kew 
York, then to London over one of the At- 



lantic cables, and then be forwarded suc- 
cessively over the lines of the Eastern Tel' 
egraph Company and the Eastern Exten- 
sion Telegraph Company to Suez, Aden, 
Bombay, Singapore, Adelaide and Sydney 
to Auckland. In short, to send a message 
between two points only 8,000 miles apart 
it would be necessary to pass over 26,276 
miles, or more than the circumference of 
the earth. 

But when Uncle Sam gets his cable thip 
will all be changed. 



"ACID BLAST" HALF-TONES. 

Great improvement has been made in the 
reproduction of pictures by the "half-tone" 
process for book, periodical and newspaper 
illustrations. The half-tone is an exact 
reproduction in the form of a metal cut, 
generally copper, of a photograph or draw- 
ing. Every detail is reproduced by pho- 
tography and the use of acids. By this 
process it is possible to make, at a nominal 
expense, exact copies of pictures, which, if 
reproduced by hand, would cost hundreds 
of dollars. One great trouble with the or- 
dinary plan of making half-tones is the 
difficulty of etching them deep enough in 
the metal to give a sharp, clear, impression 
and withstand the wear of long runs on 
the printing presses. This is now overcome 
by the "acid bath" process, in which a 
spray of acid is projected against the metal 
by mechanical means. This insures fine, 
deep plates, which print much better than 
those made in the ordinary manner. Most 
of the illustrations used in this volume are 
made by the new "acid blast" process. 
It is somewhat more expensive than the or- 
dinary work, but the more satisfactory re- 
sults justify the additional outlay. 

In etching a half-tone — that is, eating 
out the superfluous metal after the photo- 
graph is made so as to get the desired forms 




MODERN MOTOR FOR AUTOMOBILE. 

and light-and-shadow effect.? — it is custom- 
ary to give each plate about three acid 
baths or "bites." The first, lasting from 
30 to 60 seconds, secures the minimum re- 
sults desired. The plate is then washed 
and dusted with an acid-resisting powder 
which protects the parts which are deep 
enough from further attack. Two more 
"bites" are then given in the same way, 
which completes the mechanical work. 
"When extra fine pictures are desired, such 
as those used in The World's Workshop, 
the work is given a finishing touch by hand 
experts going over each plate carefully 
with engraving tools and remedying any 
possible defects. 




;.EAV YORK IN' A BLIZZARD. 

(A scene on Broadway, wUb city traffic blocked during tbe continuance of tbe storm.) 



SCIENCE, INVEXTION AXD DISCOVERY 



PHASES OF STREET LIFE IN A GREAT CITY 



Street and household life iu a great city 
has an unfailing interest to the observer, 
whether he be a student of social conditions 
or merely a seeker for entertaining novelty. 
Street crowds in a metropolis on the most 
ordinary shopping days are so great as to 
suggest a holiday or a parade to the stran- 
ger from a smaller town. And yet the flow 
of the stream of humanity is unceasing, and 
the procession of Avheeled vehicles is never 
interrupted, except at the street crossings, 
where pedestrians and drivers are alternate- 
ly given the right of way at the behest of 
the vigilant policeman. To thread one's 
way through such a crowd in the heart of 
the city becomes almost a sixth sense, and 
while the unaccustomed stranger may be 
bewildered by the roar and the confusion of 
traffic over the noisy pavements, and the 
multitudes which jostle him at every step, 
so that his progress is halting and slow, 
the resident passes from street to street or 
office to store, almost without noticing these 
things which are so familiar to him, and^ 
reaching his destination without delay, does 
not realize the crush through which he has 
passed. Upon the shopping streets of the 
great city the big stores display their wares 
in glittering array in decorated windows, or 
heap them enticingly upon racks at the edge 
of the sidewalk itself. J^ot the least pleas- 
ure of a stroll down a shopping street is 
found in the study of these window and 
sidewalk exhibits. Beautiful fabrics, milli- 
nery, books, china, jewelry, furs, pictures, 
furniture and the other offerings of the 
merchants are arranged to the best advan- 
tage to attract the unwary, and such a street 
in a metropolis today is hardly second to a 



great international exposition, so carefully 
selected are the goods and from such widely 
diverse markets of the world do they come. 

Once out of the business district of the 
city, and passing through the more crowded 
residence portions, another evidence of the 
multitudes who dwell in such a center of 
population may be seen. ''Blue Monday" 
is just as regular in its arrival in the city 
of a million as it is in the small village, 
and the freshly washed garments of the 
household need sun and air for drying in 
like manner. Without beautiful lawns and 
ample grounds around them as have the 
more favored quarters in the less crowded 
communities, the i^eople of the tenements 
must utilize what facilities they have. The 
essential and practical clothesline is made 
the subject of household ingenuity. The 
narrow back yards between the tenements 
are criss-crossed with an apparent tangle 
of lines, some high in the air and stretched 
to telegraph poles, or from house to house 
between fourth-story windows. The glimpse 
of such an area thus decorated, on a city 
washday when the sky is clear and the 
bright sun has encouraged the outdoor dry- 
ing of the fresh linen, is peculiarly novel, 
and suggests forcibly the crowded fashion 
in which people in the city must live. 

The immigrants who come to America 
generally choose to settle in communities in 
the cities, forming streets and even whole 
districts of their o"\vn nationalities. In New 
York and Chicago Russian, Jewish, Polish, 
Italian, Chinese and other special quarters 
have been established, where they preserve 
their European customs and afford interest- 
ing street sights for strangers. 




Copyright, by Detroit Photographic Co. 

STREET SCENE IN THE JEWISH QUARTER OF NFW YORK CITY ON A BUSY MARKET DAY. 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



239 



GLASS AND ITS USES 



Without glass in its various forms, the 
modern household would be quite at a loss. 
Glass enters into so many of the essential 
conveniences of life, of the commonest sort, 
that we no longer think of it as a luxury, 
but as a prime necessity. Windows, dishes, 
bottles, lamp chimneys, mirrors and orna- 
ments are among the first uses that come to 
mind, all entirely ordinary to us. And yet 
there are lands and tribes where glass is un- 
known, except as it is brought to them by 
traders from the outer world. The wild 
races of the Pacific Islands and Central 
Africa, like the Eskimos of the far north 
and the American Indians, knew nothing of 
glass until the white men taught them its 
uses. They were not slow, however, to see 
the value of such material, and trinkets of 
glass or small mirrors have been among the 
most effective articles of trade in the deal- 
ing of explorers with these people. 

Glass was first made in England by Ben- 
edict, a monk, in 674, but at that time it 
was recognized only as a novelty, and not of 
any special value. The first use of it in 
England for bottles was in 1557, and in 
the same year the first window glass was 
made there. ILore than one hundred years 
later, in 1673, the first plate glass was made 
in Lambeth, England. 

IN'ow there is no house so mean that it 
does not have glass in use in many forms. 
The decorative value of the material is 
great, and there is no more interesting dis- 
play of the finer fabrics of the world than 
can be seen in the illuminated windows of 
a great city shopping street, extending for 
miles, and forming a crystal wall behind 
wWch the choicest fabrics are displayed. 



The incandescent electric light, too, re- 
quires the transparent bulb of glass to en- 
close it, so that we owe our brilliant light 
to the same common substance. 

Glass factories have grown to immense 
proportions, particularly in the eastern 
states, where coal and natural gas are read- 
ily at hand for the immense quantity of 
fuel and the necessary mineral substances 
required in the manufacture. Pennsyl- 
vania and Indiana are among the states 
which lead in glass production. In the 
former state there are thirty glass facto- 
ries, with an invested capital of more than 
$15,000,000 and an annual value of prod- 
ucts of more than $9,000,000. Indiana has 
about twice as many factories, with a corre- 
sponding output. The employees in the 
glass factories of this state number 10,000 
and their annual wages amount to nearly 
$5,000,000. 

In the countries where glass is not known, 
the same substitutes are still used that were 
employed hundreds of years ago. Sheets of 
mica, bits of skins and other such make- 
shifts are made to answer the purpose, or 
else the windows are left wide open. In 
the Arctic regions, indeed, thin sheets of 
ice are fitted into the walls of the snow 
houses, and the light penetrates through 
them. For bottles, wooden or earthen ves- 
sels are used. But in the civilized countries 
to-day, glass is so cheap and so common, 
thanks to the improved methods applied to 
its manufacture, that no one is denied it^ 
use. It is in this cheapening of the neces- 
sities that are of universal use that modern 
industry makes one of its most conspicuous 
successes. 




mm 



THE WORK OF THE POTTER 



From the earliest times of primitive 
civilization, men have made utensils for 
domestic use out of clay, first molded into 
proper shape and then hardened by heat. 
The most primitive races lo-day make rude 
dishes roughly fashioned 
and through all the 
progTess of civilization 
the utility of this kind 
of wares has been recog- 
nized. jSTow some of th© 
most artistic minds ars 
busily engaged in cre- 
ating new designs, more 
beautiful and more ser- 
viceable. The work of 
the potter and the por- 
celain maker has be- 
come more than a mere 
mechanical craft, and is 
recognized as an art in 
the best sense of the 
word. In the finer 
grades of china, pot- 
tery, porcelain and the 
kindred wares, Euro- 
pean makers have excelled Americans until 
recent years, when the products of the Eook- 
wood workers at Cincinnati have been rec- 
ognized as worthy to rank with any in the 
world. French china, largely produced at 
Limoges from the great Haviland factory, 
is perhaps the best known modern ware in 
the American household. Wedgewood, ma- 
jolica, royal Worcester, Dresden and other 
varieties are likewise well known in this 
country. The plainer products of coarser 
ware, either in white or decorated china, 
»re produced in large quantities by great 



potteries in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, 
Ohio, and some other states. 

Oriental wares brought from China and 
Japan, are becoming better known all the 
time as our trade with the Far East in- 



and poorly 


baked. 


creases. 


Indeed it was the country of 


■■ ■ li 


'• iiiliiif^ 




'J 





NIGHT SCE-NB IN A POTTERY. 

China itself that gave to the most common 
ware its general title. Japanese and Chi- 
nese dishes are peculiarly attractive in their 
artistic decorations and their graceful form. 
One of these wares, known as Satsuma, is 
held in high esteem by connoisseurs, and 
collectors visit Japan for the purpose of 
searching for treasures of this sort. 

Eoughly speaking, all earthen ware 
passes through the same processes. The 
clay itself is properlj- mixed to the needed 
consistency, and then molded by hand or 
machine to the desired form. It is then 



242 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 




ARTIST DECORATING POTTERY. 



decorated and glazed, after wliieli in great 
ovens or kilns it is subjected to a high de- 
gree of heat, and this burning hardens the 
clay and makes permanent the decorations 
and the glaze. It is the variety of clay, the 
artistic ability devoted to the forming and 
decorating of the object, and the quality of 
the glaze or final finish, which regulate the 
beauty and the value of the product. As 
interest in household art has increased 
within the last decade, there has been a 
marked increase in the public appreciation 
of choice plastic wares, and this is resulting 
in a gradual improvement in what are now 
offered for use in the household^ for decora- 
tive or practical use. 



HOW PIANOS HAVE MULTIPLIED 

There is no more consi^icuous evidence of 
the manner in which all people profit by 
improved industrial and commercial meth- 
ods, than is shown in the business of piano 
manufacturing. It is but a few years since 
a piano was a genuine luxury, to be found 
in the households of none but the rich, or 
those who made professional use of their 
musical talents. To pay $1,000 for a piano 
meant nothing exceptionally fine in the in- 
strument under the old regime. The piano 
manufacturer might be himself musician, 
designer, workman, business manager and 
salesman of his factory. 

To-day all this has changed. The im- 



SCIEXCE, LWEXrrOX AXD DTSrOVKRY 



243 



proved metliods of wood-working and metal- 
-w'orking devised by skilful inventors, have 
made possible the construction of the ordi- 
nary piano at a cost to the manufacturer of 
hardly one-tenth what it was a generation 
ago. The methods of distribution have im- 
proved no less than those of manufacture. 
The result is that now almost every well-to- 



ago can be duplicated now or excelled for a 
fifth of that amount. 

Piano manufactories are great industrial 
institutions, employing hundreds of la- 
borers and turning out thousands of instru- 
ments a year. There is hardly a village 
that does not have its piano store and music 
teachers, and the widespread use made of 




MAKING GRAND PIANOS, SHOWING INTERIOR CONSTRUCTION. 



do household has its piano, perhaps not as 
perfect an instrument in every instance, 
with as true an identity 'as were the finest 
of those older ones which were all the prod- 
uct of skilled hand labor, and yet, it is 
believed, showing a higher average degree 
of excellence than ever before. It is true 
that there are still $1,000 pianos, but they 
are far superior to any of the former day, 
while the ones that cost such a sum years 



this most popular instrument, in the most 
enchanting of arts, is a manifest evidence 
of the advance of culture and prosperity in 
the industrial age. 

Pianos, too, have changed in form as well 
as in price. Two generations ago the grand 
piano, with its great triangular bulk, was 
first choice. The square piano, imitating 
the form of the spinet or the harpsichord 
and the older forms of the keyed, stringed 



244 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



instruments, was next in favor, and was the 
resource of those who could not find money 
or room for the larger instrument. As the 
square piano improved it became more pop- 
ular, and until twenty years ago was one 
commonly seen in most households. To-day 
the square piano has almost vanished. The 
■upright has taken its place as a better in- 
strument, far more convenient in form, and 
economical of space in the room. The 
grand piano with its greater size, strength 
and volume of tone, must retain its place 
for professional use, but it is safe to say 
that 900 out of every 1,000 pianos made in 
the great factories of the United States, are 
of the form known as the upright. 

American pianos, like other American 
products, are finding their way far afield. 
Those makes which are best known in this 



country as reliable and popular instru- 
ments, are recognized lib«wise in England 
and upon the continent of Europe. Some 
American manufacturers, indeed, in order 
to enter the European market to best ad- 
vantage, have established selling agencies 
and even factories across the Atlantic, 
where their goods are produced and sold, to 
be another item in the American advance 
in the industrial and artistic world. Such 
enterprising manufacturers seek for the 
best materials and the best markets the 
world over. Good pianos must be con- 
structed out of good materials. It is not 
merely the beautiful veneered and polished 
case, but the strength of the frame and 
■volume of the tone, that tell the story, and 
in these details American piano manufac- 
turers admit no superior. 




FINISHING CASES OF UPEIGHT PIANOS. 



SCIEXCE, IXVEXTIOX AXl) DISCOVERY 



245 



THE WONDERFUL SELF-PLAYING PIANO 



Modern niet'hanieal geuius has made it 
possible for a pei'son without musical train- 
ing, or even a knowledge of musical notes, 




INTERIOR MECHANISM OF PIANO PLAYER. 



to play the piano acceptably; to reproduce 
at sight, and without hesitation, the most 
difficult and involved of musical com- 
positions. This is accom- 
plished by means of a roll 
of stout paper in which the 
notes of the score are per- 
forated, and a pneumatic 
device, acting through these 
perforations, causes the 
piano keys to be struck in 
proper order. All that is 
necessary is to "pump" 
the foot pedals just as is 
done in the old-fashioned 
melodeon. The pressure of 
the foot on the pedals, 
causes a suction or vacuum 
in the pumper bellows, and 
air rushes in from the open- 
ings in the tracker bar and 
motor to fill this vacuum 
created. The air is admitted 
through a series of holes in 
the tracker bar — one hole 
for each of the notes to be 
played. These holes are 
closed — air tight — by the 
paper music roll and opened 
for each note, as it is to be 
played, by the perforations 
in the music roll passing the 
tracker opening. The air 
then rushes in and in its 
course to the pumper ped- 
als, exhausts the pneumat- 
ics, which, through the pi- 
ano action, strikes the ham- 
mers. The combination of 
holes in the tracker bar, 
thus act the same in play- 
ing the piano as would a 
musician's fingers. 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



263 



•which it may be readily emptied as re- 
quired. There is no dust to settle in the 
room after the cleaning is done, and the 
hard manual labor of handling the old- 
fashioned broom is avoided. 

WORLD'S PRINCIPAL PRODUCTS. 

Official reports prepared by the United 
States Department of Agriculture place the 
wheat production of the world at 3,251,000,- 
000 bushels yearly, of which the United 
States produced 695,443,000 bushels in 
1910. The second Avheat-growing country 




MANNER OF STORING SISAL IN BALES. 

is Russia, with 513,000,000 bushels. France 
is third, Avith 329,000,000. 

Corn— World's production 3,360,000,000 
bushels. United States, 3,125,713,000 bush- 
els, or virtually the entire crop. Austro- 
Hungary was second with 165,000,000 bush- 
els. 

Cotton— World's production 19,569,000 
bales. United States, 11,649,000; British 
India, 3,891,000; Egypt, 1,383,000. 

Tobacco— World's production, 2,281,000,- 
000 pounds. United States, 984,349,000; 
British India, 450,000,000 ; Russia, 206,000,- 
000. 

Swine— World's production, 145,300,000 
head. United States, 55,965,000 ; Germany, 
22,238,000 ; Russia, 11,701,000. 



Cattle— World's production, 428,300,000 
head. British India, 91,285,000; United 
States, 72,715,000; Russia, 37,531,000. 

Sheep— World's production, 577,400,000 
head. Australia, 87,652,000; Argentina, 
67,212,000 ; United States, 56,315,000. 

Horses— World's production, 95,200,000 




CLEANING A HORSE BY ELECTRICITY. 

head. Russia, 23,899,000; United States, 
23,577,000; Argentina, 7,531,000. 

In giving these figures only the product 
of the three countries ranking highest is re- 
corded. The difference betweeij the world's 
product and the total of the three countries 
given may be accounted for by the smaller 
products of the other countries. 



264 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



RUBBER GROWING IN MEXICO. 

Previous to the advent of the automo- 
bile, and the application of rubber-tired 
wheels to vehicles generally, the w^orld's 
supply of rubber was obtained from Avild 
trees in the forests of Ceylon, Malaya, 
and South America. In the preparation 
of commercial rubber the sap is drawn 
from the trees and evaporated either in 
the sun, or by artificial heat, until a hard, 
gummy mass is left. This is pure rubber. 
The process as conducted by the natives is 
wasteful and the supply uncertain. Ow- 
ing to the ever-increasing demand, and 
the necessity for a regular supply, rubber- 
producing trees are now being cultivated, 
and commercial rubber produced in a sys- 
tematic, intelligent manner in Ceylon, 
Malaya, Brazil and Mexico. One feature 
of this cultivation is the planting and care 
of the Castilloa Elastica and Hevea Bra- 



siliensis. The latter is native to the River 
Amazon basin in South America, while the 
former thrives in the rubber belt of tropi- 
cal Mexico, Central America, and the far 
East. With systematic plantation metli- 
ods improvements in the handling and 
preparation of the sap, or "milk," have 
been introduced and the output is being 
largely increased. New York merchants 
are buying from the rubber district of 
j\Iexico alone — which embraces the states 
of Tabasco and Chiapas— over 300,000 
pounds of pure rubber every year. As 
little or no rubber is used in the pure 
state in which it is imported, being util- 
ized merely as the basis of a compound, it 
Avill be seen that 300,000 pounds means a 
greatly larger amount of what is known 
as rubber when put into form for con- 
sumption. 




THESE ARE NOT BIRDS— MERELY BUSHES TRAINED BY JAPANESE 
GARDENERS. 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



265 



OPIUM AND ITS PRODUCTION 

Opium Las done much to soothe pain in 
its various medicinal uses, and has put into 
a dreamy stupor many a devotee of its in- 
sidious fumes. Its effect in international 
affairs, however, has been far from sooth- 
ing. English, French and Chinese blood 
has been shed in battle, and the diplomats 
of those three countries have used all their 
skill in settling the questions vphich have 
been raised over it. In the politics of 
Eastern Asia the opium question has been 




FIELD OP WHITE OPIUM POPPIES IN BLOOM. 

of admitted importance because of its com- 
mercial value to the tax collecting powers. 
In French Indo-China it has long been con- 
tended that this drug is the chief cause of 
difficulties with the native races^ and that 
the famous pirates on whom the French 
made war were simply honest merchants 
whose affairs were interfered with by the 
opium monopoly. It has always been 
charged against Great Britain that the war 
with China some forty years ago was in- 
cited only by the British desire to estab- 
lish the opium trade which has become the 



curse of the Chinese empire, and peace was 
permitted only when the Chinese yielded 
to the admission of the opium against which 
they had struggled so long. 

Opium, as every one knows, comes from 
the poppy, of which many varieties flourish 
in our own flower gardens. The nature of 
the soil and the climate have g-reat influence 
on the chemical qualities of the various 
plants, which are found in Persia, China, 
and more especially in India, where for a 
long time the English government has 
monopolized its culture as in 
France the government monopo- 
lizes the culture of tobacco. In 
all the immense and fertile valley 
of the Ganges, nothing is asked of 
the earth except the poppy. Tke 
districts of Patna and Benares 
are distinguished by the richness 
and abundance of their harvests. 
At the season's blossoming the air 
is saturated with a soft, enervat- 
ing perfume, and nothing equals 
the monotony of an Indian land- 
scape when the dried petals of the 
flower detach themselves and 
cover the soil. The product of 
this culture in the province of 
Bengal alone is estimated at 15,400,000 
pounds which represents a value of $30,- 
000,000. 

Opium is extracted from the matter 
which exudes from the green, unripened 
capsule of the poppy. This matter is 
gathered in little globular particles of 
amber color, by means of a special instru- 
ment. It is put into earthen pots, carefully 
covered, and transported to the laboratories 
of the English government, where it is 
massed into balls about the size of a Dutch 
cheese. These masses are covered by the 



266 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



petals of the plant, whicli have been re- 
duced to powder in order to prevent their 
adhering to each other. After being dried 
methodically, the masses are packed and 
sent to Calcutta, the market which supplies 
all Asia. 

From this raw opium is made the fin- 
ished product which is used by smokers. 
The process is a very delicate one, and only 
the Chinese know how to get the very best 
results. The raw opium is brought from 
Calcutta to the place of manufacture, to 
the opium-boiling establishments. The or- 
dinary place of this kind contains four 
large boilers and 160 small furnaces, with 
basins constructed of masonry, in the form 
of a long bench. First the balls of opium 
are cut in half, and from the inside the raw 
opium is taken with the fingers. That 
which remains attached to the envelope of 
petals is afterwards secured by placing it 
in the boiling water. These preparations 
completed, the opium is placed in the basins 
with water, where it is boiled for two hours 
and constantly stirred until it reaches the 
necessary consistency, which nothing but 
long practice can determine. The worker 
seats himself on the ground, his basin be- 
tween his knees, and with the aid of a small 
instrument works and kneads the mass be- 
fore him, over and over. 

The mass is now spread over the inner 
surface of the basin, which is tilted so that 
the direct heat of the fire is radiated against 
it. Under this influence, the external sur- 
face of the opium loses part of its moisture, 
and then becomes softer. The basin is then 
taken from the fire, and the cold air oper- 
ating on the surface of the mass hardens it 
suddenly, while the part below the surface 
retains its paste-like consistency. The 
worker seizes the hardened crust and de- 



taches it from the rest of the mass. The 
basin is then exposed to the fire again and a 
second crust is detached and sometimes 
even the third one. These crusts are then 
broken and placed in the basins full of 
water. In about twenty-four hours all the 
solid parts of the opium are separated and 
the liquor is filtered and evaporated at the 
fire to a sufficient consistency. After being 
exposed to the air the extract is put into 
copper vessels where it is left long enough 
to undergo fermentation which removes 
from it the acrid principles and permits it 
to acquire all of its necessary properties. 




A CAMPHOR TREE. 

The opium now presents itself in the 
form of a cake, brown in color like mo- 
lasses, and exhaling an aroma difficult to 
describe. The precious drug is put into 
small metallic boxes of various sizes and at 
last is ready for the market at a price rang- 
ing from twenty dollars a pound upward, 
according to quality, taxes and import 
duties in the countries where it is consumed. 

Of course its high price and the restricv- 



mm 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



267 



tions placed about the production and sale 
of the drug, account for the widespread 
theft and smuggling of it, with which all 
countries have to contend. It has its dis- 
tinct value in science, but except for the 
medical and surgical uses to which it is put, 
it would be better if this insidious decoction 
of the innocent poppy were blotted out of 
existence. 

jJ ^ ^ 

TOBACCO RAISING AND CIGAR 
MAKING 

Of all the contributions which the west- 
ern hemisphere has made to the world since 
the voyages of Columbus, probably no pro- 
duct has gained more universal use than 
tobacco. It is declared that there is no other 



luxury in the world for which so large a 
sum of money is annually paid and, indeed. 
it has been taken out of the list of luxuries 
and has become a necessity to many mil- 
lions of people. It has therefore become 
in an industrial sense one of the most im- 
portant products of agriculture and cnm- 
merce. 

An exploring party searching for strange 
things in Cuba, reported to Columbus on 
his first voyage, that they saw people who 
carried fire brands and perfumed them- 
selves with herbs which they carried with 
them. On the second voyage the habit of 
snuff taking was observed. Tobacco chew- 
ing was noticed by the Spaniards on the 
South American coasts in 1502, and, as ex- 
ploration advanced, it was found that to- 
bacco smoking was common all over the new 




CUTTING TOBACCO ON AN AMERICAN PLANTATION. 



268 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



world, dating from time immemorial, and 
that it constituted an important factor in 
all tribal negotiations and religious cere- 
monies. 

Francisco Fernandas, a Spanish phy- 
sician, was sent by Philip II. in 1558 to 
ascertain the natural products of Mexico, 
and it was he who first took the plant to 
Europe. Jean Iv'icot, the French ambas- 
sador to Portugal, sent some tobacco to 
Catherine de Medici, and his name has been 
commemorated in the scientific name of the 
tobacco plant, Nicotiana. At first it was 
supposed to possess almost miraculous heal- 
ing power. It went to Europe through 
Spain, but its use was introduced by the 
English. Ealph Lane is said to have been 
the first English smoker, and through 
the example and infiuence of Sir Walter 
Ealeigh, the habit spread among the gen- 
tlemen of Queen Elizabeth's court. 

There are many species of nicotiana, but 
those of which the leaves are used for 
smoking are few in number. These with 
but two exceptions, one a native of I^ew 
Caledonia and the other of Australia, all 
are of American origin. The tobacco plant 
flourishes over wide areas, but is best suited 
for regions having a mean temperature of 
not less than forty degrees, where early 
autumn frosts do not occur, and where there 
is neither excessive moisture or drought. 
Tropical climates develop the finest quali- 
ties, where there is no excessive moisture. 
The tobacco plant absorbs its food from the 
soil very rapidly and leaves it in an ex- 
hausted condition. This makes liberal 
fertilization necessary and the character of 
the fertilizer exercises a wonderful influ- 
ence over the quality of the tobacco. 
■- There is a saying in our own southern 
states, that the cultivation and saving of a 



successful tobacco crop requires fourteen 
months every year. This is justified by the 
fact that actual work on the crop begins by 
January first, and continues with little in- 
termission till March or even May of the 
following year. In addition to the actual 
cultivation, it involves a warfare on pests 
from the start. 

About the first week in January the 
planter goes into the thick woods where 
there is a good southern exposure and picks 
out a place for the plant bed. Then the ne- 
groes set to work clearing the required 
space. After the square is thoroughly 
cleared it is covered with fertilizer and 
then the seed, which is like a quantity of 
ground black pepper, is sown over the 
ground and whipped in with a brush. Forty 
days' time is required for it to sprout. A 
little Avhile after the seed is sown, the bed is 
covered with a flimsy cotton cloth to guard 
against the frequent changes of weather at 
that season and keep off the pests which 
would destroy young plants. Early in May 
the plants are large enough for transplant- 
ing into the field, which must be put in the 
very nicest order for their reception. The 
weather has much to do with success here, 
for it is only in a wet spell that sprouts will 
survive transplanting. The cultivation 
proper is not the most exacting part of the 
undertaking. The plowing or hoeing must 
be well, and even nicely done, but it ex- 
tends over a period of only about six weeks. 

When the plant is six weeks old it is 
topped to ten or twelve leaves, and almost 
immediately false leaves or "suckers" start 
at every joint, beginning at the bottom. As 
these detract from the proper growth of the 
leaf, it is necessary to go over the crop 
eacli week until cutting time, and pull off 
every new sucker that has been put out. As 



K^gi 



SCIJ^XCJ^, IXVENTWX AM) DISCOVERY 



269 



many as three successive sets of suckers will 
start at the base of every leaf. 

The most picturesque feature of the whole 
season is the worms. Where does the worm 
come from ? Who ever saw one in a coun- 
try where tobacco was not raised ? But let 
a man go to Alaska and get a good crop of 
tobacco under way and some morning when 
he goes out to look the prospect over he 
will be greeted by the tobacco worm. A 




CUTTING TOBACCO IN CUBA. 

great many of the worm's brethren, also, 
and their progenitors, the tobacco fly, will 
be there. JBe is a big worm, and if he were 
to make his appearance suddenly on the 
floor of a house in a region where tobacco 
is not known, he would have possession of 
the place very quickly. But his appearance 
does him injustice. He is not as dangerous 
as he looks, and his only bad habit is to- 
bacco. If left alone he would ruin a crop 
in two weeks after his arrival. But the lit- 
tle negroes do not leave him alone. They 
take him familiarly between a thumb and 
forefinger, and end his career at once. 
Planters offer a bounty of so much a dozen 
for worms taken from their fields, and a 



much greater reward is paid for the capture 
of the tobacco fly from whose eggs the 
worms hatch. There is no very great num- 
ber of tobacco flies. A very few, say a dozen 
or so, would plentifully supply a whole 
plantation with worms, and so the early de- 
struction of the fly goes a long way toward 
abating the pest. To accomplish this an 
occasional "jimson weed" is allowed to grow 
in the field, and Avhen these are in blossom 
a small amount of co- 
balt mixed with honey 
is placed in the flower. 
As the fly feeds on the 
blossom, a very small 
amount of the cobalt is 
fatal to him. 

In about ninety days 
after the planting, the 
tobacco is ready to cut. 
When ripe the green 
is dappled over with, 
slightly yellow spots. 
For cutting, a strong 
knife is used. A large 
. number of sticks about 
three feet long are then distributed over 
the field. One man holds the stick, while 
another cuts the plant, splits it near the 
base, and hangs it on the stick. Five to 
seven plants are placed on the stick, which 
then is laid on the gTound to be taken up 
into the wagon following, and hauled to 
the barn. 

The tobacco barn is a tightly constructed 
log building, about twenty feet square and 
almost as high. There are two furnaces in- 
side, which are arranged to be fired from 
the outside of the building. There are sets 
of horizontal poles across the interior, from 
which the sticks of green tobacco are sus- 
pended. The barn holds about 800 sticks, 



270 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



prd^ahlj the yield of a little less than an 
acre of ground. When it is full, the door 
is closed, ajid the fires are started, to be 
kept going night and day for four days. 
Beginning with a very low heat, it is in- 
creased to about 100 degrees by the end of 
the first twenty-four hours. Too sudden 
heat blackens the stems, and othenvise af- 
fects the color injuriously. 

Beginning with the second day, the tem- 
perature is increased about a degree an 
hour, until 125 degrees is reached. It is 
held at this temperature for from eight to 
twelve hours, after which the thermometer 
is started up again, until 180 is touched, 
and the heat is held at that until the stem 
of the tobacco is thoroughly ''killed." Then 
the fires are drawn, and a quantity of 
water is thrown in upon the ground, the 
vapor from which puts the now brittle 
leaf in condition to be handled without 
injury. Then the tobacco is taken out and 
stored away and the barn is ready to be 
filled again. 

Firing or curing is a delicate and difiicult 
task to do properly. It is necessary to re- 
plenish the fires and observe the thermom- 
eter every hour. Burning a barn and its 
contents on the third or fourth day is not 
infrequent. The heat becomes so intense 
that a spark sets it off with almost an ex- 
plosion. Tobacco cured thus in closed barns 
is much lighter in color than that dried in 
the sunlight or in the open air. The lighter 
and evener the color, the higher the price it 
brings in the market. 

After the curing is all done, comes a 
long-drawn-out task in which the men, wo- 
men and children all participate — ^that of 
stripping the leaves from the stem and tying 
them into bunches or "hands." This task 
IS not continuous, as often for two or three 



weeks at a time the leaf is too dry to handle. 
When the air is moisture laden it becomes 
as soft and pliable as a kid glove. As the 
stripping is done, the leaves are sorted by 
color into as many as seven different grades. 
When there are ten or a dozen leaves of one 
color and grade, they are secured by placing 
the stems together, wrapping an extra leaf 
tightly around them, and drawing the end 
between the other leaves. This is now called 
a "hand," and is the form in which tobacco 
is marketed. 

It is now ready for "bulking" for fer- 
mentation. For this purpose it is piled or 
stacked upon the floor of the barn or dry 
house. Fermentation is quickly set up, and 
the temperature steadily rises to about 130 
degrees. Care must be taken to prevent 
over-heating, and to secure uniform fer- 
mentation. This is accomplished by tak- 
ing down and restacking, putting the top 
to the bottom, and the outside into the 
middle. 

It requires from three to five weeks to 
complete this process, depending, of course, 
upon the quantity in the mass, and the at- 
mospheric conditions. The leaves should 
now have a fine brown color, and can be left 
in the mass until the following summer heat 
sets up what is termed the May sweat, when 
it is necessary to give it careful attention 
again. 

The net yield in money to the planter 
varies greatly. To insure success the closest 
attention is necessary at every stage of the 
work. A storm just before cutting-time 
sometimes damages the crop one-half. A bad 
job of curing, on the other hand, would take 
away nearly the other half. If the soil is 
very rich it is likely to add to the weight, 
but it more than counterbalances that gain 
by detracting from the quality. One Vir- 



mm 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



271 



ginia or !N'orth Carolina "cropper" or 
renter, if he has a couple of boys and 
can depend on the rest of the household 
on demand, will undertake the cultiva- 
tion of eight to ten acres. With fair 
luck he will make 500 pounds to the acre, 




BALED TOBACCO IN THE WAREHOUSE, 



which should bring him approximately 
$75 per acre. 

Tobacco is grown in a dozen states in this 
country, and is divided in a general way 
into "seed leaf," which is grovra in the 
Connecticut Eiver Valley and Ohio; 
"bright leaf," the characteristic product of 
Virginia and ISTorth and South Carolina; 
"white hurley," peculiar to Kentucky, and 
"shipping leaf," which has a wide range of 
country to grow in. The processes every- 
where are much as they have just been de- 
scribed. 

The ''hands" are pressed into hogsheads 
for shipment to the warehouse, by means 
of a simple screw press, set in a frame of 
heavy timbers. In each of the big tobacco 



markets, Louisville, Cincinnati, St. Louis, 
Eichmond, Clarksville and Henderson, are 
great buildings with broad, open floors, the 
tobacco warehouses which are characteristic 
of the place. The hogsheads of tobacco are 
rolled in upon these floors, and the cask 
itself is removed, leav- 
ing the mass of tobacco 
still retaining the form 
of the hogshead into 
which it has been press- 
ed. The inspector sticks 
an iron hook into the 
tobacco and removes a 
sample. Three samples 
are taken from each 
hogshead and are tied 
together, sealed, marked 
with the name of the 
owner, the weight, and 
the warehouse number 
of the hogshead. Then 
the bundle is laid on top 
of the cask. The auc- 
tioneer who sells the to- 
bacco passes the bundle of samples around 
the crowd of buyers, and when each has 
examined it sells the hogshead to the highest 
bidder. The purchased tobacco then is sent 
to the warehouse of the buyer, to be made 
into cigars, cigarettes, plug or fine-cut chew- 
ing tobacco, or smoking tobacco. 

A great improvement has been made in 
the processes of tobacco growing in Con- 
necticut and Florida, by the introduction 
of cloth shelters over the entire growing 
crop. Posts are set all over the field to be 
planted, and over these stringers and gal- 
vanized wires are stretched. Then a gi-eat 
canopy of cloth is spread over the field, the 
whole preparation costing about $250 an 
acre. In these tented tobacco fields the 



272 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



plants are immune from inseet pests, from 
the changes of climate, from the effects of 
the direct sun, and from many other diffi- 
culties which the planter ordinarily has to 
face. The coverings are strong enough to 
stand any ordinary wind, and the plants are 
not lashed and torn by the storms. Within 
the tents a continuously tropical climate 
exists. The leaves grow more luxuriantly, 
and the plants increase to great size. The 
tobacco with which these experiments have 
been made is the Sumatra product, for 
which this country has been sending annu- 
ally the sum of $6,000,000 to the Dutch 
East Indies. The Sumatra wrapper is con- 
sidered essential for cigarmaking, and the 
great profft produced by this successful ex- 
periment promises to keep this money at 
home instead of spending it for the im- 
ported product. 

Hundreds of millions of cigars and cigar- 
ettes are burned each year, and the mak- 
ing of them supports an immense army of 
workmen, who supply the tools, boxes and 
labels and who roll the fragrant cylinders. 
The cigarmaking business is one of the few 
which holds at bay the labor-saving ma- 
chine. E'umerous efforts have been made 
by sanguine inventors, who saw fortunes in 
a practical machine, but the hands and fin- 
gers of the cigarmakers, aided by the 
simplest of tools, continue to roll and shape 
the tobacco leaf into the finished product 
ready for the smoker. Eew trades require 
less in the way of tools than the cigarmak- 
ing industry. Give the skilled workman a 
hard maple board on which to roll his 
cigars, a knife, som' paste and tobacco leaf 
and he is well-equipped. But, like most 
trades where the fingers are the principal 
tools, the cigarmaking business must be 
learned from the very beginning. From 



three to five years are required to make a 
skilled workman out of a boy, and some- 
times men cannot learn the business at all. 

Cigar manufacturing may be divided 
into two general divisions, hand and mold- 
making. There is considerable difference 
in a technical way between Spanish and 
American methods, but the difference comes 
in minor details, which would not be no- 
ticed by the casual visitor to a cigar factory. 
The fact is, nearly all ordinary cigars are 
made alike, whether the cigar box has a 
'New York brand, a Key West label, or a 
Havana mark. The better class of cigars 
are the hand made, and most of the cheap 
grades are mold made. In either case the 
beginning is the same. 

The tobacco leaf is moistened, stripped, 
separated into its grades, and "booked." 
This work is done by boys who are learn- 
ing their trade, or by girls. The strippers 
tear the leaf from the thick middle stem, 
and if the leaf is to be used for wrappers or 
binders, they place the spread-out leaves, 
one over the other, into a book. Before the 
leaves are stripped they are moistened by 
being dipped in water, and laid away over 
night between damp cloths in a box. In 
spreading the leaves out for examination 
and stripping, some skill is required, for the 
stripper must know by the feel of the leaf 
just how much stretching and smoothing it 
will stand before tearing. This is a trick 
of the trade which can be learned only by 
experience. The stripper does more than 
this, however, for she separates the leaf into 
the various grades, and boys are set to work 
stripping, because they thus not only learn 
how to handle the leaf, but learn the fine 
distinctions between "wrappers," "binders" 
and "fillers." 

The filler is the core or the body of the 



as 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



273 



cigar; the binder is the leaf which is 
wrapped around the filler, and the wrapper 
is the outside of the cigar. The best-look- 
ing, largest and smoothest leaves are used 
for wrappers. The stock which does not 
quite fill all the requirements for a wrap- 
per is used for binders, and the filler is 
stock which does not come up to the binder 
standard. This difference is not so much a 
difference of quality as of appearance, for 
the same bunch of tobacco leaf which is 
taken from a bale will be divided into three 
classes. 

The cigarmaker works seated before a 
table on which is his "board," blade and 




UNPACKING TOBACCO FROM THE BALES IN A CIGAR FACTORY, 



tobacco leaf. A cloth pocket extends the 
length of the table, with its open top just 
above the workmen's knees. The scraps and 
bits of leaf cut off by the workman are 
thrown into this pocket, and the three grades 
of leaf are spread on the table in little 
heaps, each grade separate. The board on 
which the cigarmaker trims the leaf and 
rolls the cigar is made of blocks of hard 



maple, glued and dovetailed together to 
make a solid block about a foot square. 
The wood is cut across the grain, so that the 
surface of the board is made up of the cross 
sections of the smaller blocks of maple. The 
binder-stock is moist enough to bear the 
working and handling without crumbling. 
The binder-stock is more moist than the 
filler, and the broad leaves to be used for 
wrappers are so moist that the leaf feels 
silky to the touch and is elastic. 

The workman makes a bundle of tobacco 
leaf for the filler, arranging the bits so that 
the tips of the leaves are toward the butt of 
the cigar, or that end which is lighted. He 
lays the tobacco in the 
hollowed palm of his 
hand, so that the bits 
lie parallel, and packs 
them together so that 
the bunch is solid but 
not tight. This bunch 
he lays in the center of 
the trimmed leaf he has 
selected for the binder, 
and with a dexterous 
combination of twist 
and roll he wraps the 
binder around the filler 
and then puts the wrap- 
per on. The tool he 
uses for trimming the 
leaves to shape is called 
a blade. It has no handle, and resembles 
the blade of a meat-chopper used in a 
kitchen when the cook makes hash for 
breakfast. The edge of the blade is curved, 
and the cutting is done by rocking the blade 
over the leaf on the board. Knives with 
handles are used for the same purpose. The 
blade is also used to roll the cigar when the 
wrapper is put on, and the rolling not only 



274 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



gives tlie cigar a more cylindrical shape, but 
puts a sort of polish on it. 

In cutting the wrapper the cigarmaker 
endeavors to leave out the thick veins. The 
v^rapper is cut or trimmed twice, once to 
give a narrow strip, and the second time for 
the "head." The head is not cut out until 
the wrapper is on the body of the cigar and 
the workman is ready to twist the point. 
Then he cuts the wrapper in such a way 
that it will twist up to the point, but be- 
fore the point or head is made, he puts on 
some gum to hold the point in place. The 
cigar is then cut to the right length, rolled, 
and laid to one side finished. The process 
just described is generally called the "Ger- 
man hand-made" process. It is the one 
commonly used in the smaller shops in 
Chicago. 

Mold-made cigars call into use wooden 
molds which press the "bunches" to shape, 
ready for the wrappers. The molds are 
made of two pieces of wood in which cigar- 
shaped recesses are cut. Less care is used 
in bunching the filler and wrapping on the 
binder, for the mold gives the shape. The 
partly made cigars are placed in the molds 
and squeezed for an hour or so in a press. 
Then they are turned half way round in 
the molds and pressed again, and when 
taken out are "rolled" and cut to length. 
Two hundred and fifty cigars are a good 
day's output for one workman on hand- 
made goods, but 500 cigars have been made 
in one day by one cigarmaker working with 
molds. 

Spanish handmade cigars are made with- 
out binders, for the workman spreads out 
each leaf of the filler in the palm of his 
hand and twists them to shape and puts on 
the wrapper almost in one motion. 

After the cigars have been laid neatly in 



rows in the cigar box the lid is closed over 
them and the box is put in a little screw 
press, which jams the cigars down snug 
enough to permit the lid to touch the wood, 
for the cigars more than fill the box. Then 
a number of boxes are placed in a larger 
press, a board is laid over the top row, the 
screw is turned doAvn upon the board, and 
all of the boxes are kept in the press over 
night. Then the lids are tacked down and 
otherwise fastened, and the cigars are ready 
for the "trade." 



HOW TRUNKS ARE MADE 

Travelers need more than trains and 
steamships to make their journeys pleas- 
urable. They must have their baggage with 
them, and thanks to the assaults made upon 
it in transit by their eternal enemy, the 
baggage master, they must see to it that 
trunks and valises are strong enough to 
stand the shocks to which they are sub- 
mitted. It has been suggested that the men 
who make trunks and the "baggage smash- 
ers" who apparently attempt their destruc- 
tion, represent two great industries in a 
state of mutual antagonism like that which 
exists between the makers of armor plate, 
the builders of hundred-ton guns, and the 
inventors of high explosives. 

The trunk-maker selects for the body or 
box of his trunk, sheets of thoroughly sea- 
soned basswood. This may be used solid, 
or in veneers glued with the grain of alter- 
nate sheets at right angles. For the best 
trunks the veneers are used, and are glued 
together so strongly that it is almost im- 
possible to separate them. The nails used 
in fastening the box together at the joints 
and angles are of steel wire, coated with 
gum to increase the holding power. 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



275 



After the box is completed it next re- 
ceives a covering of strong canvas or duck, 
pressed upon hot glue with a heavy roller. 
This adds strength to the wood, and keeps 
it from splitting, besides giving an elastic 
surface for additional durability. After 
the glue has dried, the canvas is painted 
whatever color desired. 

The next process is to put on the hard- 
ware, the defensive armor which contributes 
additional strength at corners, edges and 
joints, where reinforcement is necessary. 
Strips of tough steel and angle-iron are 
used for this, and the nails of Swedish iron 
are all clinched. ISText hickory strips are 
nailed on to the body the long way of the 
trunk, not merely to strengthen the box, 
but to act as skids upon which it may slide 
with its heavy load when dragged over a 
truck by the baggage man. The successive 
corner clamps, handles, hinges and the 
other fittings are heavily riveted, and the 



lid is put on with the utmost care. This 
calls for the most expert workmen, for the 
lid must be opened and closed easily, and 
yet when closed and bolted must be as 
strong as the solid body. 

The lid is not fastened to the trunk until 
after the trunk lining and lid lining have 
been put on. Various fabrics are used for 
linings, such as linen, grass-cloth, duck, 
cambric, flannel and velvet. After the lin- 
ing is completed, the lid joined to the trunk, 
and the lock set in place, the outside of the 
trunk is varnished and it is ready to receive 
its trays. The trays are made of basswood, 
thin and light, but bound with fine steel 
clamps which are hidden under the lining. 
They are constructed with great care, for 
they, too, must withstand twists, strains 
and hard usage. When the trays are in 
place the trunk is ready to travel. 

Probably the strongest trunk made is the 
raw-hide trunk. This is produced at con- 




INTERIOR OF A TRUNK FACTORY. 



276 



SCIEXCE, IXVENTIOX AXD DISCOVEFY 



siderable expense and by not many manu- 
facturers, the name being a synonym for 
the highest grade. The first raw-hide trunks 
made in the west were built out of buffalo 
hide for a Chicago wholesale house twenty- 
five years ago, and those identical trunks 
are still on the road, packed with dry goods 
samples. 

Trunks are made out of basswood, tin, 
sheet iron, sole leather, canvas, split leather, 
willow, rattan, paper and pine. The com- 
mercial traveler is the trunk-maker's best 
customer. These traveling representatives 
of wholesale houses use trunks to carry all 
sorts of things. A trunk was made recently 
to carry an iron safe for a sample. A mu- 
sical instrument house in Chicago orders 
trunks large enough to hold a complete 
organ, and traveling men for a stove house 
carry full sized samples of their goods in 



trunks. The large trunks for bicycle sales- 
men have become an important part of the 
product. Theatrical companies likewise are 
among the best customers of the trade. 

Valises and traveling bags of various 
sorts, of which the dress suit case is the 
most recent and popular form, are likewise 
made in great number at the trunk fac- 
tories. The finest leathers are used and in 
the more expensive grades such traveling 
bags are fitted with silver and cut glass 
toilet utensils and all the equipments of a 
lady's boudoir. 

For making high grade trunks and 
valises, high grade labor must be employed. 
It is declared that expert workmen in such 
occupations are paid the highest wages 
earned by any mechanic or bench laborer in 
any manufacturing line in the United 
States. 




MAKING VALISES AND TRAVELING BAGS IN A TRUNK FACTORY. 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



277 



ICE 



Artificial and Natural 

There is no article more intimately as- 
sociated with our genuine comfort in the 
hot, trying weather of midsummer, than 
ice, which is now so universally distributed 
as to be recognized as no longer a luxury 



portant as to have its influence upon 
municipal politics and state legislation, and 
so profitable as to make fortunes for those 
who are engaged in it. In our northern 
states, nature by her own processes will 
make ice in the winter, enough to serve for 
the summer, if it is properly preserved, 
but in the southern states of our own coun- 
try, and in the tropics, nature's gifts do not 
take this form, and man must provide cold 
things for himself. So it is that inventors 
have devised simple machines which by 




ARTIFICIAL, ICE IN STORAGE. 



but a necessity. Ice is an essential factor 
for health and comfort, particularly in the 
cities, where people live crowded together, 
and the refreshing conditions of rural life 
are not at hand. The result of this wide use 
of the transparent blocks of frozen water is 
that for its preparation and distribution an 
immense industry has grown up, so im- 



chemical and mechanical processes produce 
ice at little cost, whether it be on the 
equator or not. So excellent is the ice thus 
frozen that great ice-manufacturing com- 
panies have been established in the north- 
ern cities as well, competing in price and 
quality with those companies which dis- 
tribute nature's own product. 



278 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



It is an old scientific trick to freeze water 
m the fire, by wiiapping a small bottle witb 
a rag soaked in ether or chloroform. The 
heat of the fire evaporates the volatile 
ether so quickly that the ether sucks the 
heat out of the v?ater and freezes it. This 
is practically what the icemaker does, only 
he uses ammonia or sulphurous oxide, in- 
stead of ether or chloroform, and works on 
a big scale with large pumps, steam en- 
gines, and miles of iron pipe. 

At ordinary temperatures ammonia is a 
vapor or gas. The ammonia which is 
bought at a drug store is really ammonia 
water, for it is a water in which ammonia 
gas has been dissolved or absorbed. The 
icemaker uses ammonia gas, sulphurous 
oxide — which is the choking, suffocating 
fumes given out when sulphur is burned — 
or ammonia water, according to the system 
he employs. Anhydrous ammonia is am- 
monia without water in it, and the ice- 
maker who uses ammonia, buys anhydrous 
ammonia. 

The whole story of artificial icemaking 
can be told in a paragraph, for it is simply 
permitting pure liquid ammonia to evapo- 
rate or expand inside of iron pipes which 
are coiled in tanks filled with salt brine, 
which gives up the heat required by the 
ammonia in evaporating, and thus lowers 
its temperature below the freezing point. 
The fresh water is in smaller cans which 
are surrounded by the brine, and is frozen, 
for the brine does not freeze even at zero. 

But to do all this, expensive, heavy and 
special machinery must be employed, and 
the combination of steam-boilers, pumps, 
condensers, tanks, pipes and other ma- 
chinery gives a complicated appearance to 
an artificial ice plant which is confusing. 

The great pump is the principal piece 



af machinery in the ice-making establish- 
ment. It performs a double office, for 
with one stroke of the piston it sucks in 
the anhydrous ammonia gas, and with the 
next compresses the gas to a liquid, for the 
anhydrous ammonia is used over and over 
again, first as a liquid, then as a gas, freez- 
ing water, and back as a liquid again. The 
ammonia gas is liquefied not only by pres- 
sure but also by cold. In an ice-making 
plant both are used. The pump forces the 
gas into the condenser, which is a series 
of coils of small pipe over which water is 
constantly flowing. The gas, pressed into 
the smaller pipe, turns to liquid ammonia. 
As it condenses, the liquid ammonia flows 
into a storage tank through small pipes 
leading from the condenser. All this time 
it is under pressure which forces it along, 
so that the liquid ammonia flows from +he 
storage tank, which is placed in a horizontal 
position, into two large vertical cylinders, 
and from there into the expansion coils, 
which lie in the bottom of the expansion 
tanks. The pipes of the expansion coils 
are much larger than the pipes which make 
up the condenser, and the liquid ammonia 
expands and evaporates as it moves along, 
keeping the salt water or brine in the freez- 
ing tanks at a temperature of 18 degrees 
or colder. 

All this time the big pump is pushing 
the liquid ammonia along, and sucking the 
ammonia gas back again, so that the am- 
monia, whether gas or liquid, is moving 
around, condensing, expanding, freezing, 
condensing again, expanding again, freez- 
ing again, and so on. 

In making artificial ice the manufacturer 
wants pure water. To be certain that the 
water is free from sediment, typhoid germs 
and other impurities he filters and distills 



SCIENCE, IXVEXTION AND DISCOVERY 



263 



■o-hieh it may be readily emptied as re- 
quired. There is no dust to settle in the 
room after the cleaning is done, and the 
hard manual labor of handling the old- 
fashioned broom is avoided. 

WORLD'S PRINCIPAL PRODUCTS. 

Official reports prepared by the United 
States Department of Agriculture place the 
wheat production of the world at 3,251,000,- 
000 bushels yearly, of which the United 
States produced 695,-i43,000 bushels in 
1910. The second wheat-growing country 




MANNER OF STORING SISAL IN BALES. 

is Russia, with 513,000,000 bushels. France 
is third, with 329,000,000. 

Corn— World's production 3,360,000,000 
bushels. United States, 3,125,713,000 bush- 
els, or virtually the entire crop. Austro- 
Hungary was second with 165,000,000 bush- 
els. 

Cotton— World's production 19,569,000 
bales. United States, 11,649,000; British 
India, 3,891,000; Egypt, 1,383,000. 

Tobacco— World's production, 2,281,000,- 
000 pounds. United States, 984,349,000; 
British India, 450,000,000 ; Russia, 206,000,- 
000. 

Swine— World's production, 145,300,000 
head. United States, 55,965,000; Germany, 
22,238,000; Russia, 11,701,000. 



Cattle— World's production, 428,300,000 
head. British India, 91,285,000; United 
States, 72,715,000; Russia, 37,531,000. 

Sheep— World's production, 577,400,000 
head. Australia, 87,652,000; Argentina, 
67,212,000 ; United States, 56,315,000. 

Horses— World's production, 95,200,000 




CLEANING A HORSE BY ELECTRICITY, 

head. Russia, 23,899,000; United States, 
23,577,000; Argentina, 7,531,000. 

In giving these figures only the product 
of the three countries ranking highest is re- 
corded. The difference between the world's 
product and the total of the three countries 
given may be accounted for by the smaller 
products of the other countries. 



264 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



RUBBER GROWING IN MEXICO. 

Previous to the advent of the automo- 
bile, and the application of rubber-tired 
wheels to vehicles generally, the vi^orld's 
supply of rubber was obtained from Avild 
trees in the forests of Ceylon, Malaya, 
and South America. In the preparation 
of commercial rubber the sap is drawn 
from the trees and evaporated either in 
the sun, or by artificial heat, until a hard, 
gummy mass is left. This is pure rubber. 
The process as conducted by the natives is 
wasteful and the supply uncertain. 0\r- 
ing to the ever-increasing demand, and 
the necessity for a regular supply, rubber- 
producing trees are now being cultivated, 
and commercial rubber produced in a sys- 
tematic, intelligent manner in Ceylon, 
Malaya, Brazil and Mexico. One feature 
of this cultivation is the planting and care 
of the Castilloa Elastica and Hevea Bra- 



siliensis. The latter is native to the River 
Amazon basin in South America, while the 
former thrives in the rubber belt of tropi- 
cal Mexico, Central America, and the far 
East. With systematic plantation meth- 
ods improvements in the handling and 
preparation of the sap, or "milk," have 
been introduced and the output is being 
largely increased. New York merchants 
are buying from the rubber district of 
Mexico alone — which embraces the states 
of Tabasco and Chiapas — over 300,000 
pounds of pure rubber every year. As 
little or no rubber is used in the pure 
state in which it ,is imported, being util- 
ized merely as the basis of a compound, it 
will be seen that 300,000 pounds means a 
greatly larger amount of what is known 
as rubber when put into form for con- 
sumption. 




THESE ARE NOT BIRDS— MERELY BUSHES TRAINED BY JAPANESE 
GARDENERS. 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



265 



OPIUM AND ITS PRODUCTION 

Opium has done much to soothe pain in 
its various medicinal uses, and has put into 
a dreamy stupor many a devotee of its in- 
sidious fumes. Its effect in international 
affairs, however, has been far from sooth- 
ing. English, French and Chinese blood 
has been shed in battle, and the diplomats 
of those three countries have used all their 
skill in settling the questions which have 
been raised over it. In the politics of 
Eastern Asia the opium question has been 



■.-<.'•'' 




j^ 


ii^Mtf^ift4fc(y-^ 


m^ 


,■.,. 


:■?:>> '■'. ■ i^^'^f 


:;i*M^»/J 


il >„.i :■■-:- .^■mp-^mgHs^m.'i-m 



FIELD OF WHITE OPIUM POPPIES IN BLOOM 

of admitted importance because of its com- 
mercial value to the tax collecting powers. 
In French Indo-China it has long been con- 
tended that this drug is the chief cause of 
difficulties with the native raceSj, and that 
the famous pirates on whom the French 
made war were simply honest merchants 
whose affairs were interfered with by the 
opium monopoly. It has always been 
charged against Great Britain that the war 
with China some forty years ago was in- 
cited only by the British desire to estab- 
lish the opium trade which has become the 



curse of the Chinese empire, and peace was 
permitted only when the Chinese yielded 
to the admission of the opium against which 
they had struggled so long. 

Opium, as every one knows, comes from 
the poppy, of which many varieties flourish 
in our own flower gardens. The nature of . 
the soil and the climate have great influence 
on the chemical qualities of the various 
plants, which are found in Persia, China, 
and more especially in India, where for a 
long time the English government has 
monopolized its culture as in 
France the government monopo- 
lizes the culture of tobacco. In 
all the immense and fertile valley 
of the Ganges, nothing is asked of 
the earth except the poppy. Tke 
districts of Patna and Benares 
are distinguished by the richness 
and abundance of their harvests. 
At the season's blossoming the air 
is saturated with a soft, enervat- 
ing perfume, and nothing equals 
the monotony of an Indian land- 
scape when the dried petals of the 
flower detach themselves and 
cover the soil. The product of 
this culture in the province of 
Bengal alone is estimated at 15,400,000 
pounds which represents a value of $30,- 
000,000. 

Opium is extracted from the matter 
which exudes from the green, "unripened 
capsule of the poppy. This matter is 
gathered in little globular particles of 
amber color, by means of a special instru- 
ment. It is put into earthen pots, carefully 
covered, and transported to the laboratories 
of the English government, where it is 
massed into balls about the size of a Dutch 
cheese. These masses are covered by the 



266 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



petals of the plant, whict have been re- 
duced to powder in order to prevent their 
adhering to each other. After being dried 
methodically, the masses are packed and 
sent to Calcutta, the market which supplies 
all Asia. 

From this raw opium is made the fin- 
ished product which is used by smokers. 
The process is a very delicate one, and only 
the Chinese know how to get the very best 
results. The raw opium is brought from 
Calcutta to the place of manufacture, to 
the opium-boiling establishments. The or- 
dinary place of this kind contains four 
large boilers and 160 small furnaces, with 
basins constructed of masonry, in the form 
of a long bench. First the balls of opium 
are cut in half, and from the inside the raw 
opium is taken with the fingers. That 
which remains attached to the envelope of 
petals is afterwards secured by placing it 
in the boiling water. These preparations 
completed, the opium is placed in the basins 
Avith water, where it is boiled for two hours 
and constantly stirred until it reaches the 
necessary consistency, which nothing but 
long practice can determine. The worker 
seats himself on the ground, his basin be- 
tween his knees, and with the aid of a small 
instrument works and kneads the mass be- 
fore him, over and over. 

The mass is now spread over the inner 
surface of the basin, which is tilted so that 
the direct heat of the fire is radiated against 
it. Under this influence, the external sur- 
face of the opium loses part of its moisture, 
and then becomes softer. The basin is then 
taken from the fire, and the cold air oper- 
ating on the surface of the mass hardens it 
suddenly, while the part below the surface 
retains its paste-like consistency. The 
worker seizes the hardened crust and de- 



taches it from the rest of the mass. The 
basin is then exposed to the fire again and a 
second crust is detached and sometimes 
even the third one. These crusts are then 
broken and placed in the basins full of 
water. In about twenty-four hours all the 
solid parts of the opium are separated and 
the liquor is filtered and evaporated at the 
fire to a sufficient consistency. After being 
exposed to the air the extract is put into 
copper vessels where it is left long enough 
to undergo fermentation which removes 
from it the acrid principles and permits it 
to acquire all of its necessary properties. 



i 


^^^^^^^^^^ ' ^ 


^^^m 




fe 


^H 



A CAMPHOR TREE. 

The opium now presents itself in the 
form of a cake, brown in color like mo- 
lasses, and exhaling an aroma difficult to 
describe. The precious drug is put into 
small metallic boxes of various sizes and at 
last is ready for the market at a price rang- 
ing from twenty dollars a pound upward, 
according to quality, taxes and import 
duties in the countries where it is consumed. 

Of course its high price and the restrict 



mm 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



267 



tions placed about the production and sale 
of the drug, account for the widespread 
theft and smuggling of it, with which all 
countries have to contend. It has its dis- 
tinct value in science, but except for the 
medical and surgical uses to which it is put, 
it would be better if this insidious decoction 
of the innocent poppy were blotted out of 
existence. 

TOBACCO RAISING AND CIGAR 
MAKING 

Of all the contributions which the west- 
ern hemisphere has made to the world since 
the voyages of Columbus, probably no pro- 
duct has gained more universal use than 
tobacco. It is declared that there is no other 



luxury in the world for which so large a 
sum of money is annually paid and, indeed, 
it has been taken out of the list of luxuries 
and has become a necessity to many mil- 
lions of people. It has therefore become 
in an industrial sense one of the most im- 
portant products of agriculture and cnm- 
merce. 

An exploring party searching for strange 
things in Cuba, reported to Columbus on 
his first voyage, that they saw people who 
carried fire brands and perfumed them- 
selves with herbs which they carried with 
them. On the second voyage the habit of 
snuff taking was observed. Tobacco chew- 
ing was noticed by the Spaniards on the 
South American coasts in 1502, and, as ex- 
ploration advanced, it was found that to- 
bacco smoking was common all over the new 




CUTTING TOBACCO ON AN AMERICAN PLANTATION. 



268 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



world, dating from time immemorial, and 
that it constituted an important factor in 
all tribal negotiations and religious cere- 
monies. 

Francisco Fernandas, a Spanish phy- 
sician, was sent by Philip II. in 1558 to 
ascertain the natural products of Mexico, 
and it was he who first took the plant to 
Europe. Jean ISTicot, the French ambas- 
sador to Portugal, sent some tobacco to 
Catherine de Medici, and his name has been 
commemorated in the scientific name of the 
tobacco plant, Nicotiana. At first it was 
supposed to possess almost miraculous heal- 
ing power. It went to Europe through 
Spain, but its iise was introduced by the 
English. Ealph Lane is said to have been 
the first English smoker, and through 
the example and infiuence of Sir Walter 
Ealeigh, the habit spread among the gen- 
tlemen of Queen Elizabeth's court. 

There are many species of nicotian a, but 
those of which the leaves are used for 
smoking are few in number. These with 
but two exceptions, one a native of ISTew 
Caledonia and the other of Australia, all 
are of American origin. The tqbacco plant 
flourishes over wide areas, but is best suited 
for regions having a mean temperature of 
not less than forty degrees, where early 
autumn frosts do not occur, and where there 
is neither excessive moisture or drought. 
Tropical climates develop the finest quali- 
ties, where there is no excessive moisture. 
The tobacco plant absorbs its food from the 
soil very rapidly and leaves it in an ex- 
hausted condition. This makes liberal 
fertilization necessary and the character of 
the fertilizer exercises a wonderful influ- 
ence over the quality of the tobacco. 
"• There is a saying in our own southern 
states, that the cultivation and saving of a 



successful tobacco crop requires fourteen 
months every year. This is justified by the 
fact that actual work on the crop begins by 
January first, and continues with little in- 
termission till March or even May of the 
following year. In addition to the actual 
cultivation, it involves a warfare on pests 
from the start. 

About the first week in January the 
planter goes into the thick woods where 
there is a good southern exposure and picks 
out a place for the plant bed. Then the ne- 
groes set to work clearing the required 
space. After the square is thoroughly 
cleared it is covered with fertilizer and 
then the seed, which is like a quantity of 
ground black pepper, is sown over the 
ground and whipped in with a brush. Forty 
days' time is required for it to sprout. A 
little while after the seed is sown, the bed is 
covered with a flimsy cotton cloth to guard 
against the frequent changes of weather at 
that season and keep off the pests which 
would destroy young plants. Early in May 
the plants are large enough for transplant- 
ing into the field, which must be put in the 
very nicest order for their reception. The 
weather has much to do with success here, 
for it is only in a wet spell that sprouts will 
survive transplanting. The cultivation 
proper is not the most exacting part of the 
undertaking. The plowing or hoeing must 
be well, and even nicely done, but it ex- 
tends over a period of only about six weeks. 

When the plant is six weeks old it is 
topped to ten or twelve leaves, and almost 
immediately false leaves or ''suckers" start 
at every joint, beginning at the bottom. As 
these detract from the proper growth of the 
leaf, it is necessary to go over the crop 
each week until cutting time, and pull off 
every new sucker that has been put out. As 



9«^ 



SCIENCE, IXVEXTIOX AND DISCOVERY 



269 



many as three successive sets of suckers will 
start at the base of every leaf. 

The most picturesque feature of the whole 
season is the worms. Where does the worm 
come from ? Who ever saw one in a coun- 
try where tobacco was not raised ? But let 
a man go to Alaska and get a good crop of 
tobacco under way and some morning when 
he goes out to look the prospect over he 
will be greeted by the tobacco worm. A 




CUTTING TOBACCO IN CUBA. 

great many of the worm's brethren, also, 
and their progenitors, the tobacco fly, will 
be there. He is a big worm, and if he were 
to make his appearance suddenly on the 
floor of a house in a region where tobacco 
is not known, he would have possession of 
the place very quickly. But his appearance 
does him injustice. He is not as dangerous 
as he looks, and his only bad habit is to- 
bacco. If left alone he would ruin a crop 
in two weeks after his arrival. But the lit- 
tle negroes do not leave him alone. They 
take him familiarly between a thumb and 
forefinger, and end his career at once. 
Planters offer a bounty of so much a dozen 
for worms taken from their fields, and a 



much greater reward is paid for the capture 
of the tobacco fly from whose eggs the 
worms hatch. There is no very great num- 
ber of tobacco flies. A very few, say a dozen 
or so, would plentifully supply a whole 
plantation with worms, and so the early de- 
struction of the fly goes a long way toward 
abating the pest. To accomplish this an 
occasional ''jimson weed" is allowed to grow 
in the field, and when these are in blossom 
a small amount of co- 
balt mixed with honey 
is placed in the flower. 
As the fly feeds on the 
blossom, a very small 
amount of the cobalt is 
fatal to him. 

In about ninety days 
after the planting, the 
tobacco is ready to cut. 
When ripe the green 
is dappled over with 
slightly yellow spots. 
For cutting, a strong 
knife is used. A large 
number of sticks about 
three feet long are then distributed over 
the field. One man holds the stick, while 
another cuts the plant, splits it near the 
base, and hangs it on the stick. Five to 
seven plants are placed on the stick, which 
then is laid on the ground to be taken up 
into the wagon following, and hauled to 
the barn. 

The tobacco barn is a tightly constructed 
log building, about twenty feet square and 
almost as high. There are two furnaces in- 
side, which are arranged to be fired from 
the outside of the building. There are sets 
of horizontal poles across the interior, from 
which the sticks of green tobacco are sus- 
pended. The barn holds about 800 sticks, 



270 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



proBaWy the yield of a little less than an 
acre of ground. When it is full, the door 
is closed, ajid the fires are started, to he 
kept going night and day for four days. 
Beginning with a very low heat, it is in- 
creased to about 100 degrees by the end of 
the first twenty-four hours. Too sudden 
heat blackens the stems, and otherwise af- 
fects the color injuriously. 

Beginning with the second day, the tem- 
perature is increased about a degree an 
hour, until 125 degrees is reached. It is 
held at this temperature for from eight to 
twelve hours, after which the thermometer 
is started up again, until 180 is touched, 
and the heat is held at that until the stem 
of the tobacco is thoroughly "killed." Then 
the fires are drawn, and a quantity of 
water is thrown in upon the ground, the 
vapor from which puts the now brittle 
leaf in condition to be handled without 
injury. Then the tobacco is taken out and 
stored away and the barn is ready to be 
filled again. 

Firing or curing is a delicate and difficult 
task to do properly. It is necessary to re- 
plenish the fires and observe the thermom- 
eter every hour. Burning a barn and its 
contents on the third or fourth day is not 
infrequent. The heat becomes so intense 
that a spark sets it off with almost an ex- 
plosion. Tobacco cured thus in closed barns 
is much lighter in color than that dried in 
the sunlight or in the open air. The lighter 
and evener the color, the higher the price it 
brings in the market. 

After the curing is all done, comes a 
long-drawn-out task in which the men, wo- 
men and children all participate — that of 
stripping the leaves from the stem and tying 
them into bunches or "hands." This task 
IS not continuous, as often for two or three 



at a time the leaf is too dry to handle. 
When the air is moisture laden it becomes 
as soft and pliable as a kid glove. As the 
stripping is done, the leaves are sorted by 
color into as many as seven different grades. 
When there are ten or a dozen leaves of one 
color and grade, they are secured by placing 
the stems together, wrapping an extra leaf 
tightly around them, and drawing the end 
between the other leaves. This is now called 
a "hand," and is the form in which tobacco 
is marketed. 

It is now ready for "bulking" for fer- 
mentation. For this purpose it is piled or 
stacked upon the floor of the barn or dry 
house. Fermentation is quickly set up, and 
the temperature steadily rises to about 130 
degrees. Care must be taken to prevent 
over-heating, and to secure imiform fer- 
mentation. This is accomplished by tak- 
ing down and restacking, putting the top 
to the bottom, and the outside into the 
middle. 

It requires from three to five weeks to 
complete this process, depending, of course, 
upon the quantity in the mass, and the at- 
mospheric conditions. The leaves should 
now have a fine brown color, and can be left 
in the mass until the following summer heat 
sets up what is termed the May sweat, when 
it is necessary to give it careful attention 
again. 

The net yield in money to the planter 
varies greatly. To insure success the closest 
attention is necessary at every stage of the 
work. A storm just before cutting-time 
sometimes damages the crop one-half. A bad 
job of curing, on the other hand, would take 
away nearly the other half. If the soil is 
very rich it is likely to add to the weight, 
but it more than counterbalances that gain 
by detracting from the quality. One Vir- 



K^99 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



271 



ginia or N'ortli Carolina "cropper" or 
renter, if he has a couple of boys and 
can depend on the rest of the household 
on demand, will undertake the cultiva- 
tion of eight to ten acres. With fair 
luck he will make 500 pounds to the acre, 




BALED TOBACCO IN THE WAREHOUSE- 



which should bring him approximately 
$75 per acre. 

Tobacco is grown in a dozen states in this 
country, and is divided in a general way 
into "seed leaf," which is grown in the 
Connecticut Kiver Valley and Ohio; 
"bright leaf," the characteristic product of 
Virginia and N'orth and South Carolina; 
"white hurley," peculiar to Kentucky, and 
"shipping leaf," which has a wide range of 
country to grow in. The processes every- 
where are much, as they have just been de- 
scribed. 

The '''hands" are pressed into hogsheads 
for shipment to the warehouse, by means 
of a simple screw press, set in a frame of 
heavy timbers. In each of the big tobacco 



markets, Louisville, Cincinnati, St. Louis, 
Eichmond, Clarksville and Henderson, are 
great buildings with broad, open floors, the 
tobacco warehouses which are characteristic 
of the place. The hogsheads of tobacco are 
rolled in upon these floors, and the cask 
itself is removed, leav- 
ing the mass of tobacco 
still retaining the form 
of the hogshead into 
which it has been press- 
ed. The inspector sticks 
an iron hook into the 
tobacco and removes a 
sample. Three samples 
are taken from each 
hogshead and are tied 
together, sealed, marked 
with the name of the 
owner, the weight, and 
the warehouse number 
of the hogshead. Then 
the bundle is laid on top 
of the cask. The auc- 
tioneer who sells the to- 
bacco passes the bundle of samples around 
the crowd of buyers, and when each has 
examined it sells the hogshead to the highest 
bidder. The purchased tobacco then is sent 
to the warehouse of the buyer, to be made 
into cigars, cigarettes, plug or fine-cut chew- 
ing tobacco, or smoking tobacco. 

A great improvement has been made in 
the processes of tobacco growing in Con- 
necticut and Florida, by the introduction 
of cloth shelters over the entire growing 
crop. Posts are set all over the field to be 
planted, and over these stringers and gal- 
vanized wires are stretched. Then a gi-eat 
canopy of cloth is spread over the field, the 
whole preparation costing about $250 an 
acre. Li these tented tobacco fields the 



272 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



plants are immune from inseet pests, from 
the changes of climate, from the effects of 
the direct sun, and from many other diffi- 
culties which the planter ordinarily has to 
face. The coverings are strong enough to 
stand any ordinary wind, and the plants are 
not lashed and torn by the storms. Within 
the tents a continuously tropical climate 
exists. The leaves grow more luxuriantly, 
and the plants increase to great size. The 
tobacco with which these experiments have 
been made is the Sumatra product, for 
which this country has been sending annu- 
ally the sum of $6,000,000 to the Dutch 
East Indies. The Sumatra wrapper is con- 
sidered essential for cigarmaking, and the 
great profrt produced by this successful ex- 
periment promises to keep this money at 
home instead of spending it for the im- 
ported product. 

Hundreds of millions of cigars and cigar- 
ettes are burned each year, and the mak- 
ing of them supports an immense army of 
workmen, who supply the tools, boxes and 
labels and who roll the fragrant cylinders. 
The cigarmaking business is one of the few 
which holds at bay the labor-saving ma- 
chine. ISTumerous efforts have been made 
by sanguine inventors, who saw fortunes in 
a practical machine, but the hands and fin- 
gers of the cigarmakers, aided by the 
simplest of tools, continue to roll and shape 
the tobacco leaf into the finished product 
ready for the smoker. Few trades require 
less in the way of tools than the cigarmak- 
ing industry. Give the skilled workman a 
hard maple board on which to roll his 
cigars, a knife, som' paste and tobacco leaf 
and he is well-equipped. But, like most 
trades where the fingers are the principal 
tools, the cigarmaking business must be 
learned from the very beginning. From 



three to five years are required to make a 
skilled workman out of a boy, and some- 
times men cannot learn the business at all. 

Cigar manufacturing may be divided 
into two general divisions, hand and mold- 
making. There is considerable difference 
in a technical way between Spanish and 
American methods, but the difference comes 
in minor details, which would not be no- 
ticed by the casual visitor to a cigar factory. 
The fact is, nearly all ordinary cigars are 
made alike, whether the cigar box has a 
]^ew York brand, a Key West label, or a 
Havana mark. The better class of cigars 
are the hand made, and most of the cheap 
grades are mold made. In either case the 
beginning is the same. 

The tobacco leaf is moistened, stripped, 
separated into its grades, and "booked." 
This work is done by boys who are learn- 
ing their trade, or by girls. The strippers 
tear the leaf from the thick middle stem, 
and if the leaf is to be used for wrappers or 
binders, they place the spread-out leaves, 
one over the other, into a book. Before the 
leaves are stripped they are moistened by 
being dipped in water, and laid away over 
night between damp cloths in a box. In 
spreading the leaves out for examination 
and stripping, some skill is required, for the 
stripper must know by the feel of the leaf 
just how much stretching and smoothing it 
will stand before tearing. This is a trick 
of the trade which can be learned only by 
experience. The stripper does more than 
this, however, for she separates the leaf into 
the various grades, and boys are set to work 
stripping, because they thus not only learn 
how to handle the leaf, but learn the fine 
distinctions between "wrappers," "binders" 
and "fillers." 

The filler is the core or the body of the 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



273 



cigar; the binder is the leaf which is 
wrapped around the filler, and the wrapper 
is the outside of the cigar. The best-look- 
ing, largest and smoothest leaves are used 
for wrappers. The stock which does not 
quite fill all the requirements for a wrap- 
per is used for binders, and the filler is 
stock which does not come up to the binder 
standard. This difference is not so much a 
difference of quality as of appearance, for 
the same bunch of tobacco leaf which is 
taken from a bale will be divided into three 



The cigarmaker works seated before a 
table on which is his "board," blade and 




UNPACKING TOBACCO FROM THE BALES IN A CIGAR FACTORY, 



tobacco leaf. A cloth pocket extends the 
length of the table, with its open top just 
above the workmen's knees. The scraps and 
bits of leaf cut off by the workman are 
thrown into this pocket, and the three grades 
of leaf are spread on the table in little 
heaps, each grade separate. The board on 
which the cigarmaker trims the leaf and 
rolls the cigar is made of blocks of hard 



maple, glued and dovetailed together to 
make a solid block about a foot square. 
The wood is cut across the grain, so that the 
surface of the board is made up of the cross 
sections of the smaller blocks of maple. The 
binder-stock is moist enough to bear the 
working and handling without crumbling. 
The binder-stock is more moist than the 
filler, and the broad leaves to be used for 
wrappers are so moist that the leaf feels 
silky to the touch and is elastic. 

The workman makes a bundle of tobacco 
leaf for the filler, arranging the bits so that 
the tips of the leaves are toward the butt of 
the cigar, or that end which is lighted. He 
lays the tobacco in the 
hollowed palm of his 
hand, so that the bits 
lie parallel, and packs 
them together so that 
the bunch is solid but 
not tight. This bunch 
he lays in the center of 
the trimmed leaf he has 
selected for the binder, 
and with a dexterous 
combination of twist 
and roll he wraps the 
binder around the filler 
and then puts the wrap- 
per on. The tool he 
uses for trimming the 
leaves to. shape is called 
a blade. It has no handle, and resembles 
the blade of a meat-chopper used in a 
kitchen when the cook makes hash for 
breakfast. The edge of the blade is curved, 
and the cutting is done by rocking the blade 
over the leaf on the board. Knives with 
handles are used for the same purpose. The 
blade is also used to roll the cigar when the 
wrapper is put on, and the rolling not only 



274 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



gives the cigar a more cylindrical shape, but 
puts a sort of polish on it. 

In cutting the wrapper the cigarmaker 
endeavors to leave out the thick veins. The 
wrapper is cut or trimmed twice, once to 
give a narrow strip, and the second time for 
the "head." The head is not cut out until 
the wrapper is on the body of the cigar and 
the workman is ready to twist the point. 
Then he cuts the wrapper in such a way 
that it will twist up to the point, but be- 
fore the point or head is made, he puts on 
some gum to hold the point in place. The 
cigar is then cut to the right length, rolled, 
and laid to one side finished. The process 
just described is generally called the "Ger- 
man hand-made" process. It is the one 
commonly used in the smaller shops in 
Chicago. 

Mold-made cigars call into use wooden 
molds which press the "bunches" to shape, 
ready for the wrappers. The molds are 
made of two pieces of wood in which cigar- 
shaped recesses are cut. Less care is used 
in bunching the filler and wrapping on the 
binder, for the mold gives the shape. The 
partly made cigars are placed in the molds 
and squeezed for an hour or so in a press. 
Then they are turned half way round in 
the molds and pressed again, and when 
taken out are "rolled" and cut to length. 
Two hundred and fifty cigars are a good 
day's output for one workman on hand- 
made goods, but 500 cigars have been made 
in one day by one cigarmaker working with 
molds. 

Spanish handmade cigars are made with- 
out binders, for the workman spreads out 
each leaf of the filler in the palm of his 
hand and twists them to shape and puts on 
the wrapper almost in one motion. 

After the cigars have been laid neatly in 



rows in the cigar box the lid is closed over 
them and the box is put in a little screw 
press, which jams the cigars down snug 
enough to permit the lid to touch the wood, 
for the cigars more than fill the box. Then 
a number of boxes are placed in a larger 
press, a board is laid over the top row, the 
screw is turned down upon the board, and 
all of the boxes are kept in the press over 
night. Then the lids are tacked down and 
otherwise fastened, and the cigars are ready 
for the "trade." 

HOW TRUNKS ARE MADE 

Travelers need more than trains and 
steamships to make their journeys pleas- 
urable. They must have their baggage with 
them, and thanks to the assaiilts made upon 
it in transit by their eternal enemy, the 
baggage master, they must see to it that 
trunks and valises are strong enough to 
stand the shocks to which they are sub- 
mitted. It has been suggested that the men 
who make trunks and the "baggage smash- 
ers" who apparently attempt their destruc- 
tion, represent two great industries in a 
state of mutual antagonism like that which 
exists between the makers of armor plate, 
the builders of hundred-ton guns, and the 
inventors of high explosives. 

The trunk-maker selects for the body or 
box of his trunk, sheets of thoroughly sea- 
soned basswood. This may be used solid, 
or in veneers glued with the grain of alter- 
nate sheets at right angles. For the best 
trunks the veneers are used, and are glued 
together so strongly that it is almost im- 
possible to separate them. The nails used 
in fastening the box together at the joints 
and angles are of steel wire, coated with 
gum to increase the holding power. 



rmm 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



275 



After the box is completed it next re- 
ceives a covering of strong canvas or duck, 
pressed upon hot glue with a heavy roller. 
This adds strength to the wood, and keeps 
it from splitting, besides giving an elastic 
surface for additional durability. After 
the glue has dried, the canvas is painted 
whatever color desired. 

The next process is to put on the hard- 
ware, the defensive armor which contributes 
additional strength at corners, edges and 
joints, where reinforcement is necessary. 
Strips of tough steel and angle-iron are 
used for this, and the nails of Swedish iron 
are all clinched. Next hickory strips are 
nailed on to the body the long way of the 
trunk, not merely to strengthen the box, 
but to act as skids upon which it may slide 
with its heavy load when dragged over a 
truck by the baggage man. The successive 
corner clamps, handles, hinges and the 
other fittings are heavily riveted, and the 



lid is put on with the utmost care. This 
calls for the most expert workmen, for the 
lid must be opened and closed easily, and 
yet when closed and bolted must be as 
strong as the solid body. 

The lid is not fastened to the trunk until 
after the trunk lining and lid lining have 
been put on. Various fabrics are used for 
linings, such as linen, grass-cloth, duck, 
cambric, flannel and velvet. After the lin- 
ing is completed, the lid joined to the trunk, 
and the lock set in place, the outside of the 
trunk is varnished and it is ready to receive 
its trays. The trays are made of basswood, 
thin and light, but bound with fine steel 
clamps which are hidden under the lining. 
They are constructed with great care, for 
they, too, must withstand twists, strains 
and hard usage. "When the trays are in 
place the trunk is ready to travel. 

Probably the strongest trunk made is the 
raw-hide trunk. This is produced at con- 




INTERIOR OP A TRUNK FACTORY. 



276 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



siderable expense and by not many manu- 
facturers, the name being a synonym for 
the highest grade. The first raw-hide trunks 
made in the west were built out of buffalo 
hide for a Chicago wholesale house twenty- 
five years ago, and those identical trunks 
are still on the road, packed with dry goods 
samples. 

Trunks are made out of basswood, tin, 
sheet iron, sole leather, canvas, split leather, 
willow, rattan, paper and pine. The com- 
mercial traveler is the trunk-maker's best 
customer. These traveling representatives 
of wholesale houses use trunks to carry all 
sorts of things, A trunk was made recently 
to carry an iron safe for a sample. A mu- 
sical instrument house in ■ Chicago orders 
trunks large enough to hold a complete 
organ, and traveling men for a stove house 
carry full sized samples of their goods in 



trunks. The large trunks for bicycle sales- 
men have become an important part of the 
product. Theatrical companies likewise are 
among the best customers of the trade. 

Valises and traveling bags of various 
sorts, of which the dress suit case is the 
most recent and popular form, are likewise 
made in great number at the trunk fac- 
tories. The finest leathers are used and in 
the more expensive grades such traveling 
bags are fitted with silver and cut glass 
toilet utensils and all the equipments of a 
lady's boudoir. 

For making high grade trunks and 
valises, high grade labor must be employed. 
It is declared that expert workmen in such 
occupations are paid the highest wages 
earned by any mechanic or bench laborer in 
any manufacturing line in the United 
States. 




MAKING VALISES AND TRAVELING BAGS IN A TRUNK FACTORY. 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



277 



ICE 



Artificial and Natural 

There is no article more intimately as- 
sociated with, our genuine comfort in the 
hot, trying weather of midsummer, than 
ice, which is now so universally distributed 
as to be recognized as no longer a luxury 



portant as to have its influence upon 
municipal politics and state legislation, and 
so profitable as to make fortunes for those 
who are engaged in it. In our northern 
states, nature by her own processes will 
make ice in the winter, enough to serve for 
the summer, if it is properly preserved, 
but in the southern states of our own coun- 
try, and in the tropics, nature's gifts do not 
take this form, and man must provide cold 
things for himself. So it is that inventors 
have devised simple machines which by 




ARTIFICIAL ICE IN STORAGE. 



but a necessity. Ice is an essential factor 
for health and comfort, particularly in the 
cities, where people live crowded together, 
and the refreshing conditions of rural life 
are not at hand. The result of this wide use 
of the transparent blocks of frozen water is 
that for its preparation and distribution an 
immense industry has grown up, so im- 



chemical and mechanical processes produce 
ice at little cost, whether it be on the 
equator or not. So excellent is the ice thus 
frozen that great ice-manufacturing com- 
panies have been established in the north- 
ern cities as well, competing in price and 
quality with those companies which dis- 
tribute nature's own product. 



278 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



It is an old scientific trick to freeze water 
in the fire, by wiapping a small bottle with 
a rag soaked in ether or chloroform. The 
heat of the fire evaporates the volatile 
ether so quickly that the ether sucks the 
heat out of the water and freezes it. This 
is practically what the icemaker does, only 
he uses ammonia or sulphurous oxide, in- 
stead of ether or chloroform, and works on 
a big scale with large pumps, steam en- 
gines, and miles of iron pipe. 

At ordinary temperatures ammonia is a 
vapor or gas. The ammonia which is 
bought at a drug store is really ammonia 
water, for it is a water in which ammonia 
gas has been dissolved or absorbed. The 
icemaker uses ammonia gas, sulphurous 
oxide — which is the choking, suffocating 
fumes given out when sulphur is burned — 
or ammonia water, according to the system 
he employs. Anhydrous ammonia is am- 
monia without water in it, and the ice- 
maker who uses ammonia, buys anhydrous 
ammonia. 

The whole story of artificial icemaking 
can be told in a paragraph, for it is simply 
permitting pure liquid ammonia to evapo- 
rate or expand inside of iron pipes which 
are coiled in tanks filled with salt brine, 
which gives up the heat required by the 
ammonia in evaporating, and thus lowers 
its temperature below the freezing point. 
The fresh water is in smaller cans which 
are surrounded by the brine, and is frozen, 
for the brine does not freeze even at zero. 

But to do all this, expensive, heavy and 
special machinery must be employed, and 
the combination of steam-boilers, pumps, 
condensers, tanks, pipes and other ma- 
chinery gives a complicated appearance to 
an artificial ice plant which is confusing. 

The great pump is the priacipal piece 



of machinery in the ice-making establish- 
ment. It perfoi-ms a double office, for 
with one stroke of the piston it sucks in 
the anhydrous ammonia gas, and with the 
next compresses the gas to a liquid, for the 
anhydrous ammonia is used over and over 
again, first as a liquid, then as a gas, freez- 
ing water, and back as a liquid again. The 
ammonia gas is liquefied not only by pres- 
sure but also by cold. In an ice-making 
plant both are used. The pump forces the 
gas into the condenser, which is a series 
of coils of small pipe over which water is 
constantly flowing. The gas, pressed into 
the smaller pipe, turns to liquid ammonia. 
As it condenses, the liquid ammonia flows 
into a storage tank through small pipes 
leading from the condenser. All this time 
it is under pressure which forces it along, 
so that the liquid ammonia flows from +he 
storage tank, which is placed in a horizontal 
position, into two large vertical cylinders, 
and from there into the expansion coils, 
which lie in the bottom of the expansion 
tanks. The pipes of the expansion coils 
are mu.ch larger than the pipes which make 
up the condenser, and the liquid ammonia 
expands and evaporates as it moves along, 
keeping the salt water or brine in the freez- 
ing tanks at a temperature of 18 degrees 
or colder. 

All this time the big pump is pushing 
the liquid ammonia along, and sucking the 
ammonia gas back again, so that the am- 
monia, whether gas or liquid, is moving 
around, condensing, expanding, freezing, 
condensing again, expanding again, freez- 
ing again, and so on. 

In making artificial ice the manufacturer 
wants pure water. To be certain that the' 
water is free from sediment, typhoid germs 
and other impurities he filters and distills 



Ktmm 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



279 



the water before it is frozen. In some ice 
works the water is filtered once before it 
is distilled and twice afterward. 

The freezing tanks are made of iron. 
They usually are set below the floor, for 
the purpose of facilitating the handling of 



is kept in motion by an agitator somewhat 
like a screw propeller. This gives the brine 
an even temperature. It requires from 
forty-eight to sixty hours to freeze the 
water in one of the cans. 

The cans are covered while the water is 



mm. 


1 


1 


,,-.1 .'/■;,; \ -T/^'' ■'■.; 




3 




tSti ^1 


^r«|f^ 




ii| 


1 


■ .^ ' 


m> 


11 




-% 



FREEZING TANK ROOM IN AN ICE FACTORY. 
The tanks are shown in the floor, each with rings by which they are lifted. 



the ice. The tanks are about 50 feet long, 
20 feet wide and 4 feet deep. The cans in 
which the distilled water is frozen are 44 
inches by 22 inches by 11 inches in size. 
The pipes which contain the anhydrous 
ammonia go back and forth across the tank 
between the cans, and the salt water brine 



freezing, so that the whole process of freez- 
ing is really going on under the floor, for 
the covers are the plates of the floor. Over 
the freezing tank is a traveling crane, with 
a block and tackle for hoisting the cans with 
the frozen blocks out of the tank. The cans 
are lifted so that when they are clear of 



280 



SCIENCE, IXYEXTIOX AND DISCOVERY 



*;he tank they tilt upside down. They are 

then carried by the traveling crane to the 
nead of a gangway which runs into the 
icehouse. Here eTeams of tepid water are 
directed upon the can. In a few moments 
Ihe ice holding the caie to the can melts, 
and the block of artificial ice slides out of 
the can and down the gang-way. The can is 
then taken back, filled with water, and . 
dropped into the tank again. 

Where shafts or tunnels go through 
';(uicksands artificial refrigeration is some- 
times used to freeze the treacherous ma- 
terial. The anhydrous ammonia plant is 
on the surface or at the mouth of the tun- 
nel, and from it brine chilled to zero is 
sent through pipes to the place of working. 
Pipes are driven ,°head of the work into 
the quicksand, and the circulating brine 
freezes the loose ground into a hard 
cylinder. The work is then carried on 
•through this frozen material, which shuts 
out the quicksand until the brick is laid in. 

Fortunately nearly every city and town 
has some lake or river near by where ice 
can be cut in winter. The lakes of Michi- 
gan, "Wisconsin and Minnesota, filled with 
pure water as they are, furnish a large 
quantity of the ice used in Detroit, Chi- 
cago, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, St. Paul 
and the other smaller cities within their 
territory. During the winter season busy 
scenes may be observed at these lakes, which 
are the favored resorts of multitudes of 
summer visitors in vacation time. Their 
frozen surface is alive with men and teams 
cutting the ice, rafting it to shore, and 
turning it over to the sleds that haul it to 
the railway for shipment to the ice houses. 

There was a time when people were more 
careless about the health conditions of the 
food and its surroundings than they are 



now, but it has come to De so clear'y recog- 
nized that many of our bodily ills come 
from carelessness in the sanitation of our 
houses and in the freshness of our food, 
that people now scrutinize these details with 
great care. Ice made from impure water 
is no longer acceptable for our refrigerators 
or our drinking water. Laws have been 
passed protecting the public in this matter, 
and their rigid enforcement has assisted 
materially in reducing typhoid and kindred 
diseases. 

IVORY, HOW OBTAINED AND 
USED 

Every ivory billiard ball m use in the 
world is said to have cost the life of a 
human being. And still the demand for 
ivory, not only for the nianuf acture of these 
simple spheres for a popular game, but 
for a multitude of other uses in decorative 
and toilet articles, continues, with the price 
so high that the trade still goes on in spite 
of its disastrous cost in human life. 

Most of the heavy expense has been paid 
in the jungles of central Africa, where a 
man does not count for half as much as a 
humped ox or a trained ape. For nature 
has built an effectual barrier about her cul- 
tivators of billiard balls — the elephants — 
and he who would penetrate it must take 
his life in his hands. 

In the first place she has provided an 
atmosphere of great heat, reeking half the 
year with moisture, in which lurk the germs 
o± a hundred unnamed diseases, and rent 
for two seasons with sudden storms accom- 
panied by heavy rains. Then there is the 
barrier of a rank and tangled vegetation, 
through which no roads but those of the 
jungle-folk have yet pierced. The hug© 



SCIEXCE, TXVEXTTOX AXD DISCOVEBY 



281 



trees conceal fierce wild animals, poison- 
ous snakes, and insects whose stings mean 
death at the end of the days of suffering. 
Impassable morasses, lakes, broad rivers 
and mountain ranges are also numerous, 




rVORY MARKET AT ANTWERP. 
Tusks displayed ready for buyers. 



and jet more dangerous are the jealous 
savages, who have learned enough of civili- 
zation to distrust it, and who know that a 
man never protests against robbery after 
he is dead. 



So the elephant is given a chance to grow 
a little before the harvesters of the ivory 
crop can reach him. When he has trump- 
eted for a few score of years, and his tusks 
have made him a power in the herd, some 
native hunter spies 
him as he thrashcb 
through the jungle or 
wades in a morass. 
Then a great number 
of the bravest warriors 
gather and build a 
huge inclosure of 
vines, into which the 
elephant one day 
walks. From the sur- 
rounding trees come a 
shower of arrows, and 
perhaps a bullet or two 
from an ancient gun 
obtained at a hundred 
times its value from 
some wandering trad- 
er. The elephant 
charges about trumpet- 
ing, but on every side 
the barrier holds him 
in. At last he falls, 
overcome by numbers. 
Then his great tusks 
are packed away, and 
a row of naked natives 
carry them for days 
through the jungle, 
until they are placed 
in the king's treas- 
ury as a part of the 
wealth as well as the currency of a nation. 
After a time traders from England and 
from other countries appear, and the tusks 
are bartered for bright nothings, old-fash- 
ioned and shop-worn fabrics, food, whisky 



282 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



and firearms. There is another long period 
of transporting the precious ivory on the 
backs of natives, with the constant danger 
of attack from hostile tribes and the treach- 
ery of friendly ones. At last it is aboard 
ship, and after weeks on the sea it arrives 
at the great ports where it is sold to carvers 
and manufacturers. 

The best ivory comes from Africa. Some 
of the tusks are from eight to ten feet long, 
and often weigh 170 pounds. The Indian 
elephants' tusks are much shorter and of 
less weight, and the great demand has re- 
duced the supply to such an extent that it 
is now rare to find a large tusk. Indian 
ivory is not so good in quality as that from 
Africa. Much of the ivory used in Eussia 
and other parts of Europe is found in 
northern Russia and Siberia, in the re- 
mains of prehistoric mammoths. Where 
the skeletons have been always frozen in 
the earth, the ivory is as good as the ordi- 
nary Indian product, but much of it has 
been injured by exposure to the weather. 
Tusks have been found which were more 
than 12 feet long and weighed upwards of 
200 pounds. 

The value of ivory rests mainly in its 
toughness, its elasticity, and its quality of 
taking a high polish. It is filled with mil- 
lions of minute holes which give it an elas- 
ticity which no solid object could ever have. 
In effect ivory is the same substance as 
the dentine of the teeth, and it is unlike 
bone in having no channel for the passage 
of blood. The teeth or tusks of the nar- 
whal, sperm whale, walrus, and hippopota- 
mus are also used as ivory, but the quality 
is usually poor. 

Great skill is required in buying tusks, 
for the external appearance is most often 
deceptive. The inside may be full of ab- 



scesses and cracks, and sometimes the core 
is filled with pieces of stone and chunks of 
iron by the tricky natives and no less 
tricky dealers. 

When at last the tusk reaches the manu- 
facturer of billiard balls it is again ex- 
amined very carefully for flaws, and even 
if the smallest crack is perceptible the 
ivory is used for some other purpose. If 
the tusk is found to be perfect and of about 
the right size — a little larger in diameter 
than the ball is to be — it is sent out to 
the workroom. Here workmen measure 
the tusk into the proper distances to be cut 
into blocks. It is then sawed into lengths 
of two and a half to three inches, accord- 
ing to the size of balls to be made, and 
the turners take the blocks in hand. In 
order to save the corners of the blocks the 
turner cuts a ring at each end and slowly 
deepens it until a rough ring drops off. 
This is subsequently finished into a martin- 
gale ring like those used on expensive har- 
ness. Two rings come from each billiard 
ball block. The remaining ivory is now 
almost round, and after a few more shav- 
ings are taken off it is laid aside to dry for 
about six months, for "green" ivory is 
rather soft, and there is always a likelihood 
of some shrinkage. 

When it has been seasoned it goes to the 
workman again, and with still more deli- 
cate chisels he pares it down smooth and 
exactly round, a task requiring much skill 
and care. Then the ball is roughly pol- 
ished by means of an ingenious little ma- 
chine, after which it is treated to a rub- 
bing with chalk and chamois skin, and 
finally with plain, soft leather. It is now 
bright, shiny, and to one who doesn't know 
about such things, perfectly smooth. But a 
workman spends much time rubbing it with 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



283 






the palms of his hands, the best 
of all devices. 

Every particle of sawdust 
and shavings from an ivory- 
shop is scrupulously saved. By 
a wonderful process these are 
treated with chemicals, submit- 
ted to enormous hydraulic pres- 
sure, and molded into various 
small articles so perfect in every 
particular that only an expert 
can tell them from solid ivory. 









"^-■c. 






BRINGING IVORY FROM THE AFRICAN JUNGLES 
TO THE COAST FOR SHIPMENT. 



Worn-out billiard balls are cut 
into various small articles. 

The carving of ivory is one 
of the oldest arts in the world. 
Excellent bas-reliefs and images 
are found in ancient ruins, and 
when they are affected by time 
and weather they are partially 
restored by boiling in gelatine. 
The most expert carvers are the 
Japanese and Chinese, who 
spend years on a single piece, 
making it exquisitely beautiful. 

Many attempts have been 
made to produce artificial ivory, 
but thus far they have not been 
very successful, the elephant 
still retaining a monopoly of 
the business. Ivory is grow- 
ing more costly and more rare 
from year to year, and it is only 



284 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



a question of time when the sources of sup- 
ply will fail. 

Until a few years ago London and Liver* 
pool were the two great ivory markets ol 
the world, but they have been outstripped 
of late by Antwerp. This is on account 
of the development of the trade in the 
Congo Free State, which is a colony of 
Belgium. The Antwerp market was 
opened less than ten years ago. The stock 
offered there for sale is remarkable not 
only for the great number of tusks, but 
also for the enormous size of some of them. 
Among those sold lately was a pair weigh- 
ing nearly 350 pounds. A few days be- 
fore the opening of the market the tusks, 
all laid out and numbered in lots, are 
placed on public exhibition in some great 
hall, as represented in the accompanying 
illustration, and the buyers come here to 
select what they want and bid for them. 

The world's consumption of ivory is very 
large. The annual average quantity used 
is about 1,500,000 pounds. Taking into 
consideration the fact that in the wholesale 
markets such as Antwerp and London ivory 
costs on an average $1.75 a pound, an idea 
may be had of its importance in commerce. 

Unfortunately the future of this trade, 
which has caused streams of blood, is 
seriously threatened. The constant war 
waged upon the elephant on account of his 
ivory is bringing him nearer and nearer to 
extinction. The Congo Free State has 
occupied itself earnestly with this question, 
and has officially established a closed sea- 
son and limited conditions, during which 
elephant-hunting is absolutely forbidden. 
It is also proposed to establish elephant 
farms in the Congo State, as has been done 
by the English with ostriches in South 
Africa. 



OSTRICH FARMS IN AFRICA 
AND CALIFORNIA 

When the demands of fashion for plumes 
and the careless slaughter of the great birds 
began to threaten the extermination of the 
ostrich, clever business men in South Africa 
decided to domesticate the valuable pro- 
ducers of the big feathers, and raise them 
more carefully, for profit. So it was that 
a new industry was created. Eggs were 
obtained and hatched, the young birds care- 
fully reared, and though the first experi- 
ments were carried on at a loss, it was not 
long before the milliners of the whole world 
were drawing their supply of plumes from 
the ostrich farms of Cape Colony and 
]SJ"atal. The trade now has reached such 
proportions that in a single year ostrich 
feathers to the value of more than $3,000,- 
000 have been exported from South Africa. 
An illustration on page 344 in this volume 
shows a characteristic group of ostriches 
on one of these queer ranches near Cape 
Town. 

When Americans saw the profit in ostrich 
farms, they promptly looked about to find 
a region in this country where the same 
industry could be established. In Southern 
California, Arizona and 'New Mexico they 
found favorable conditions, and now there 
are a score of large and profitable enter- 
prises of the kind in operation in the south- 
west. The first birds and eggs were brought 
from South Africa, of course, but now they 
are bred here with entire success. 

These ostrich farms produce a large part 
of the plumes used in this country. The 
feathers are plucked from the big birds 
once a year, the plumes bringing about $20 
a pound. These peculiar ranches are places 
of great interest for traveling strangers. 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



285 



LIQUID AIR— ITS WONDERFUL POWER 




LIQUID AIR BOILING ON A BLOCK OP ICE. 

To Charles E. Tripler, a scientist of 
Xew York City, l>eloiigs tlie credit for hav- 
ing made liquid air familiar to the scien- 
tific world, cheapened its production, and 
applied it to practical commercial pur- 



It seems almost a contradiction in terms 
at first thought, and yet scientists have 
been able to liquefy not only air but many 
other gases, -while they can also turn solids 
into liquid, and the resulting liquid into 
gases. It is all a matter of temperature and 
pressure. 

Tripler, however, was not the pioneer in 
experiments. Scientists had long observed 
that to compress a gas into a reduced vol- 
ume, raised its temperature greatly. The 
heat thus resulting was to be generated by 
the pressure applied, but experiments soon 
proved it was not caused by the actual in- 
crease of the heat of the whole body, but 
rather by the concentration of the heat of 
the entire mass into the smaller space. 

Later experiments showed that if this gas 
under pressure was cooled, and then al- 
lowed to expand to its former volume, it 
.would fall greatly in t*^mperature, and in 



practice a drop of 200 degrees was ob- 
tained. In 1877, the first real headway was 
made by scientists in their efforts to liquef;^ 
air. The first real success in these experi- 
ments was made by Raoul Pictet, who sub- 
mitted oxygen gas to a great pressure, com- 
bined with intense cold, and produced a few 
drops of the clear liquid that soon evap- 
orated into the air after a few moments of 
violent bubbling. In 1892, there was a like 
success with nitrogen, the other constituent 
of air. About the same time Prof. Dewar, 
of England, performed the same experi- 
ments, and then succeeded in producing a 
small quantity of liquid air, or rather a 
sort of slush of air, water and ice. His 




PACKING LIQUID AIR FOR SHIPMENT. 



286 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 




LIQUID AIR BOILING BY HEAT OP THE 
ATMOSPHERE. 



experiments aroused tlie utmost interest 
among scientists, but the cost of the appa- 
ratus and processes, which amounted to 
$3,000 for this first ounce of liquid air, 
limited it to laboratory experimentation. 

It was Prof. Tripler who discovered the 
means by which this wonderful product 
could be made with ease, at a cost of not 
more than 20 cents a gallon. Tripler 's 
process comes as near being a practical 
form of the chimerical perpetual motion 
as can be conceived, as he utilized power 
generated by the liquid air itself to pro- 
duce more liquid air, and as the production 
from a given quantity is in each instance 
a larger quantity, there is a constant in- 
crease of the power at command. 

The apparatus for the manufacture of 
liquid air, in addition to the power plant, 
is an air compressor, and a barrel-shaped 
tank about 15 feet high, penetrated by a 
multitude of small pipes and valves, pro- 
tected by felt iind canvas to keep out the 
heat. This contrivance is so arranged that 
the expanding air, which constantly grows 
cooler, passes about the pipes containing 
the working material. Air is placed under 
a pressure of 2,500 pounds to the square 
inch, and cooled to about 50 degrees by 



being passed in pipes through running 
water. From there it is conveyed to the 
receiver through two different sets of pipe, 
one containing the air to be liquefied, and 
the other the air that does the work of 
liquefying, both under the same heavy pres- 
sure. By opening a tap in the receiver, 
the air from the latter pipe rushes up and 
around all the pipes in the barrel-like space, 
expanding, reducing the pressure, taking 
up the heat wherever any can be found, 




DRAWING LIQUID AIR, FROM THE 
LIQUSFIBR. 



SCIEXCE, INVEXTIOX AXD DISCOVERY 



287 



growing wanner, and gradually rising to 
tlie top of the space. 

While this process is in operation the air 
in the pipes has been gradually returning 
to the compressor, where it is again brought 
under pressure and cooled, only to be re- 
leased once more in the receiver, there to 
absorb more heat from the confined air in 
the pipes. So rapid is this process that 
the temperature of the air goes down 100 
degrees every time it is thus chilled, and it 
takes only fifteen minutes to produce the 
desired result. At the expiration of the 
fifteen minutes the faucet at the bottom 
may be opened, and the liquid air, at a 
temperature of 312 degrees below zero, be- 
gins to flow from the pipes. 

Liquid air is of such an expanding 
nature that if confined it would explode. 
In order to preserve the product thus 
yielded, various devices have been prepared. 
One of the vessels used for carrj'ing liquid 
air is a bulb of glass, which is surrounded 
by an outer vessel, of the same material, 
the two having a vacuum between them and 
joined by a common neck at the top. The 
vacuum thus produced delays the passage 
of heat, so that the evaporation of the liquid 
in the inner tube is reduced to a minimum. 
In a shipment of nine hours, air packed in 
the above manner, loses less than one-third 
of its bulk. 

Liquid air is eleven and one-half times 
as powerful as compressed air, and yet it 
may be carried in a pasteboard box, while 
the heaviest steel tanks would be required 
to control as much energy in compressed 
air. In the meantime Prof. Tripler goes 
on experimenting with this wonderful air. 
Inventors of airships are seeking something 
that combines great power with lightness; 
submarine navigators want an economical 



motive power and air for the crews to 
breathe; deep-sea divers hope that some 
service may be rendered to their perilous 
profession by the use of casks of the liquid 
suited to their apparatus, and automobiles 
have been adapted to this power. By the 
use of liquid air, a rose may be frozen in 
its full form, or an egg may be made so 
solid that when broken, it will scatter like 
a powder. The surface of a frozen potato 
is as hard as stone and beautiful as ivory. 
Frozen butter may be pounded in a mortar 
until it is as fine as flour, and raw beefsteak 
will become pale and then break, like petri- 
fied wood. Mercury is frozen, and alcohol 




ROSES FROZEN WITH LIQUID AIR 
RENDERED BRITTLE AS GLASS. 



288 



SCIEXCE, IXVEXTIOX AXD DISCOVERY 



is made stringy and white by this air, and 
steel bars, Avlien dipped into this liqiiid, 
may be burned as readily as a piece of dry 
wood. 

ITS POSSIBLE USE FOR FUEL AND PRO- 
PULSION. 

In the not distant future, liquid air may 
supplant some forms of fuel, for when 
mixed with any form of carbon, it burns 
rapidly or explodes. Thus it may be used 
in interior combustion engines, — ^for in- 
stance, the gas engine. 



FULL RECOGNITION OF A GREAT DIS- 
COVERY. 

When, with its lightness and extreme 
potency, it shall be utilized in helping to 
solve the problem of practical aeronautics, 
and shall also be made to serve, with a suit- 
able motor, in propelling submarine craft, 
while at the same time supplying breathing 
air to the crew, through compression in 
storage tanks, then, indeed, will be fully 
recognized the great significance of the dis- 
coveiy of liquid air. 




I 



DRIVING A NAIL WITH A HAMMER MADE OP MERCURY 
FROZEN BY LIQUID AIR. 



m 



SCIESCE, IXVEXTWX AND DISCOVERY 



289 



NEW PROCESS OF MAKING STAINED-GLASS WINDOWS 




In a short article of this description, it is 
possible to give only the bare outlines of 
tlie art of making stained-glass windows. 
To begin at the beginning, when the exact 
shape and subject of a window is decided 
apon, a water color sketch is prepared to 
scale, and then the working drawings and 
cartoon in full size are made. The draw- 
ings are done either in monochrome, char- 
coal, crayon, pencil, or bister, in wash or 
in color or pastel, according to the taste of 
the artist. 

The lead glazing lines are usually shown 
on the drawing, and for the guidance of the 
glass cutter a tracing of these lines is made 
on linen. Possibly, the most important, 
and certainly one of the most delicate func- 
tions in the making of a window, now fol- 
lows — that of choosing the glass itseK, for 
on this depends to a great extent the final 
artistic results, as will be presently ex- 
plained. The artist stands by the cutter 
and chooses each tint, each sheet, and even 
indicates the particular part of each sheet 
most suitable for his purpose. Tor the 
color is no^ always even throughout the 



glass. What to an inexperienced eye looks 
like a flaw, a splash of different color, or 
a mass of air bubbles, is produced inten- 
tionally in the manufacture of the glass, 
and eventually adds to the beauty of the 
window. AYhen the various pieces are 
chosen, they are cut to shape on the linen 
tracing. A tracer now marks on the pieces 
of glass the main lines of the artist's draw- 
ing. It is here that one may point out why 
stress is laid on the importance of the artist 
choosing his own glass, and not leaving it to 
the cutter. 

A prevalent idea is that a stained glass 
window is produced by painting white or 
ordinary glass with various colors, but it 




By courtesy of the American Art Glass Co., of Chicago, 



290 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



is not so. It is in reality a Mosaic of col- changed. The pigment used is chocolate- 
ored glass, shaped by a pigment of one color brown, in color, and is made of the same 

earths as the glass itself, with some 
iron or copper added to give opacity. 
The next process is to stick onto a 
sheet of plate glass, with hot wax, all 
pieces, placed in their proper order 
and position and the whole is then 
covered with a fairly thick pigment, 
and, while still wet, stippled to let 
the light through. When the pig- 
ment has dried, the lights and half 
tones are picked out and brushed 
away, here and there a shadow is 
strengthened with more pigment, and 
the work is ready for diapering and 
staining. The diapers, or patterns, 
are either painted on in thick opaque 
lines, or the existing paint is etched 
out with points, to the required de- 
sign (see illustration). Staining is 
painting the back of such portions of 
glass as may seem desirable with 
nitrate of silver, which, when suffi- 
ciently heated, changes to a brilliant 
yellow. It can be so manij)ulated as 
to give shades from pale lemon to 
deepest orange. 

The pieces of glass are now all dis- 
mounted and carefully laid in flat 
iron trays, the bottom of which con- 
tains a layer of white dry powder; 
the glass is so arranged that no two 
pieces touch. The trays are then 
placed in a kiln heated by powerful 
Bunsen burners, gTadually brought 
to heat and as gradually cooled. The 
pigment which, as was pointed out, 
is made of the same earths as the 
glass on which it is painted, has become, by 
firing, part and parcel of the glass itself; 




By courtesy of the American Art Glass Co., of Chicago. 

STAINED GLASS WINDOW— REPRESENTING A 

HUNTING SCENE. 

only, and with the exception of what is 
called staining, which will be presently ex- 
plained, the color of the glass is in no way 



it is no longer paint, but actual glass. 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



291 



It is now ready for the glazier wlio, by 
means of the design or cartoon, puts the 




3y courtesy of the American Art Glass Co., 
ARTISTIC WINDOW. 



different pieces in their proper places, and 
joins them together by means of grooved 
leads, and solder. Around the outside edge 
of the desig-n, in order to bind the whole 
firmly together, is fixed a stronger piece of 
lead than that used to join the pieces of 
glass. 

ISTow follows a very dirty process — that 
of making the window proof against the 
weather. This is done by rubbing under 
the leads a cement made of whiting, oil, etc. 
The whole window on one side is smeared 
with this, but it is eventually all cleaned off, 
leaving a deposit under the leads which, 
makes it water tight. Again the glazier 
takes it in hand and solders onto the lead 
cross-bars of galvanized iron at proper in- 
tervals. It is now ready for setting. 

The stone mullions of a window to be 
fitted with stained glass are gTOOved on one 
side deeper than on the other. The glass is 
slipped into the deeper groove first and then 
pulled back into the shallow one in the mul- 
lion opposite. The iron bars, called tee 
bars, are set into the stone on each side of 
the window holding the glass in place. The 
space between the outer lead of the glass 
and the stone work is now carefully filled 
in Avith cement, to prevent the rain beating 
through, and then the window is complete. 




i^sii3gii^?'^?ic^it^?5Ks 




292 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 




LTJXFER PRISMS AS LIGHT 
TRANSMITTERS 

While some scientists have been busy 

with new inventions for the production of 

improved light from electricity and gas, 

others have given their attention to the 

more effective use 

of the light which 

is free to all, that 

of the sun, which 

is the ultimate 

source of all light. 

The Luxfer 

prism, invented 

by a Canadian in- 

How THE PRISM ACTS, vcstigator of the 

Showing ray of light from nTipnnmpnn fyf 

above, deflected to a horizon- pneuomend OI 

tal course as it passes l ,• ~ l, a T rt 

through the glass. ■'■ -^ 5 -"^ ^ J " • ^ • 

Pennycuick, i s 
admittedly one of the most noteworthy of 
contributions to practical optics. 

Luxfer prisms are sheets of crystal glass 
having a smooth outer surface, and an inner 
surface divided into a series of small, accu- 
rately formed prisms. They can be united 
into plates of any size, to fit any window 
sash. The rays of light from without, that 
strike the smooth surface, penetrate it as 
they do any other glass. The prisms on 
the opposite surface, however, are set at 
such an angle that the light passing through 
them is refracted to a horizontal direction, 
and thus illuminates the room much far- 
ther from the window than is the case with 
ordinary, plane-surfaced glass. The dark 
comers are lighted, the gas and electric 
light bills are reduced, and all this without 
a meter to continually register the saving 
and bring in a charge for it. 

These prisms and their modified forms 
are applied to use in a multitude of ways. 



Large stores have them placed in the tran- 
som frames above the front windows, so that 
the rear of the long rooms may receive 
ample light. The same prisms placed like 
an awning in front of windows in a nar- 
row, shaded street, gather the scanty light 




LUXFER PRISMS IN tJSE 

Illumination in a basement salesroom by means of 

prisms in the sidewalk. 

from above and defiect it into the building 
so equipped. Sidewalks made of Luxfer 
prisms receive the direct light from the 
sky on the upper face, and turn or refract 
it into the basement of the building ad- 
joining. It is said that more than five 
thousand prominent buildings throughout 
the United States installed Luxfer prisms 
within the first five years of their manu- 
facture. This is noteworthy evidence of the 
fact that new inventions that are oi' genu- 
ine value are sure to find welcome. 



SCIEXCE, IXVEXTIOX AXD DISCOVERY 



293 



MARVELOUS METALS RECENTLY DISCOVERED 

KAMUM AND POLONIITM TKROW OUT LIGHT THAT SHINES THEOUGH IRON. WOMAK 
SCIENTIST'S ACHIEVEMENT. VALUE OF RADIUM $1,000,000 PER POUND. 



A new metallic substance called raditim 
has been discovered by a Polish woman, 
Maaame Sklodowska Curie, who, with her 
!iusband, is engaged in scientific work in 
Paris. 



would probably destroy his eyesight, burn 
off his skin and even kill him. 

Now, before scientists have finished mar- 
veling at the new arid mysterious metal, 
the Poli-li -,voiuau lias aJJed another to her 




RADIU.M'S MIGHTY EXPLOSIVE POWER. 



The power of an 



Crookes) to lift the entire 



Kadium is a white crystalline powder, a 
combination o£ several metals, with an 
illuminating power that far eclipses the 
Eoentgcn or X-rays. Its rays travel almost 
as fast as sunlight and can pierce three feet 
of iron, bum through metallic cases and 
take photographs in closed trunks. Pro- 
fessor Curie, the husband of the discoverer, 
says that he would not venture into a room 
containing two pounds of radium, as it 



triumphs in chemistry, by the discovery of 
a still more wonderful element to which she 
has patriotically given the name of polon- 
iu.:-i, in compliment of her native country. 
In a much higher degree than radium it 
possesses the property of shining in the 
dark and, like radium, this strange sub- 
stance does not seem to exhaust itself or 
lose its luminous powers with the passage of 
time. 



294 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



Polonium is extracted from pitcliblende, 
a black mineral found in Bohemia and here- 
tofore considered valueless, after uranium 
had been extracted from it. Uranium is 
most commonly used for imparting fine 
orange tints to glass and porcelain enamel. 

As yet too little is understood of the mar- 
velous properties of this new metal to pre- 
dict just what its uses will be in medicine, 
surgery and other sciences; but it is not 
improbable that it may be found to per- 
form the present functions of the Roentgen 
or X-rays far more powerfully and with- 
out their cumbrous apparatus. 

VALUE, $1,000,000 PEE POUND. 

Its vast value, $1,000,000 a pound, must 
always keep it as a laboratory subject, but 
one that is pregnant with possibilities to the 
scientific world. 

BUT TWO POUNDS OP RADIUM IN THE 
WORLD. 

The total supply in the world is esti- 
mated at two pounds, which, if gathered to- 
gether, would contain enough potential 
energy to swing the globe from its orbit. 
It pi'ojects in (visible elections — or scientific 
particles of matter — at the amazing rate of 
1,200,000 miles per second. It neither tests 
nor destroys anything, but &i plate of 
radium one inch square woulcv! shine suc- 
cessfully for a million years. 

RADIOGRAPH OF A MOUSE. 

William J. Hammer, an electrical en- 
gineer of New York, has made a series of 
photographs and radiographs by the light 
of radium. Among them is a radiograph 
of a mouse, taken by laying the animal di- 
rectly on the plate, which was then placed 
in the bottom of a trunk, wrapped in rugs 
and allowed to remain there twenty-four 

hours. 

RADIUM'S UTILITIES. 

The future uses of radium are likely to 



be various and important. In connection 
with the treatment of blindness and cancer, 
great and beneficent results are confidently 
expected. The extremely limited supply 
thus far available restricts its applicatien 
to industrial purposes; but is understood 
that a small fraction of an ounce; properly 
employed, would probably furnish a good 
light for several rooms, which would last, 
without renewal, for a hundred years. Cal- 
culations have been . made indicating that 
the potential force inherent in one gramme 
of radium will raise 500 tons to the height 
of a mile. An ounce would therefore be 
sufficient to propel a 50-horse-power motor 
car at the rate of 30 miles an hour around 
the world. 

AN AMAZING TRANSFORMATION. 
The most recent discovery in connection 
with radium, through the experimentations 
with radium is that a dense vapor is thrown 
ofi^ by it, which is gradually transformed 
into helium and afterward disappears. 
This antagonizes a basic idea in chemistry. 
The gas now found to emanate from it 
is measurable and weighable and can 
be bottled, but vanishes within a few 
weeks. It was at the moment of its disap- 
pearance that its spectrum was discovered 
by Prof. Eamsay to show the peculiar fea- 
tures of helium, which grew more manifest 
until the identity was established. This 
astounding transformation suggests the 
problem whether, if one metal can change 
into another of a different nature, a simi- 
lar transmutation, under certain conditions, 
may not likewise affect many other sub- 
stances in metallurgy. The latest predic- 
tion from scientific sources is that a species 
of radium will soon be obtainable from 
petroleum by certain processes now being 
pursued. 



SCIEXCE, IXVEXTrOX AXJ) BJSCOVEBY 



>9r) 



SNAP-SHOTS OF THE HUMAN VOICE 



K French scientist, ]M. Marage, has in- 
rented a process bj means of which it is 
p.ow possible to photograph the human 
roice. The actual vibrations of the air, 
made in speaking the vowel soimds, can be 
recorded and madn visible by an ingenious 
use of chronophctographj, or the analyz- 
ing of motions by means of instantaneous 
photographs. J.'ery one is familiar with 



vibrating in unison with the sound waves, 
throw their images into a revolving mir- 
ror, which dissociates and causes them to 
appear in various forms, according to the 
soxmd. By means of the acetylene flames, 
which are photogenic, yhe vibrations are re- 
corded on a ribbon of sensitized paper. 

It has been found possible also to photx)- 
graph the various functional movements of 




^^^)^»^^mv 







CHROXOPHOTOGRAPH OF THE 
MOVEMENTS OF THE JAW. 



HOW THE VOICE LOOKS IN 

FORMING SOME OF THE 

yOWEL SOUNDS. 



PHOTOGRAPH OF AIR CURRENTS 
PASSING A CURVED OBJECT. 



an opposite and synthetic use of chrono- 
photography, — the presenting of animated 
views of moving objects by means of the 
kinetoscope. 

M. Marage's scheme may be described as 
follows: the vibrations of the air set in 
motion by the voice are made to act upon 
the flames of acetylene gas, issuing from 
Bpecially prepared burners. The 



the body. Thus the motions of the lower 
jaw in the act of opening the mouth may be 
represented, as well as the movements of 
the ribs in respiration. Another ingenious 
use of chronophotography makes it possible 
to reproduce in visible form the action of 
air currents in their passage around an ob- 
struction, as shown in one of the accom- 
panying illustrations. 



296 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



THE SOLAR FURNACE 



POWEU FROM THE SUN. 
A wonderful new invention, running 
steam engines, smelting all kinds of ores 
^.nd minerals, heating and lighting houses 
and cooking all kinds of food, either day or 
night, by heat of the sun's rays, without 
fire, fuel or expense, is the Solar Furnace. 

STEAM ENGINES. 

For running steam engines the sun's 
rays are concentrated by 
means of curved reflectors 
onto a specially built high- 
pressure boiler, the heat be- 
ing so intense that the water 
is turned into steam very fast, 
two square yards of sunlight 
furnishing sufficient heat to 
develop one horse-power, the 
sunlight falling on a space 44 
feet square, furnishing suf- 
ficient heat to run a 100 
horse - power steam engine. 
Any engine can be used, but 
a specially built boiler is 
necessary. The reflector is 
mounted on a revolving base 
and moved by a clock-work 
attachment that keeps it in 
focus with the sun all day. 

PUMPING PLANTS. 

It is thought by some that the solar fur- 
nace will revolutionize the present irriga- 
tion system, especially in the Southwest, 
where water is scarce and fuel high. Any 
amount of water and fuel can be pumped 
from either deep or shallow wells ; no fuel 
is required, and when a plant is once in- 



stalled the expense is ended. On all 
pumping plants requiring over five horse- 
power, a steam engine is used, the steam 
being generated by the heat of the sun, as 
above stated. On plants of five horse- 
power or less, a "compression" engine with 
pump attached is used. jSTo fire, fuel, 
steam, or water is used; nothing but sun- 
light and air. It is impossible for it to 
"blow up" or explode. It works auto- 




By courtesy of the Solar-Furnace and Power Co. 
SOLAR FURNACE (SIDE VIEW). 



matically, and no engineer is required. 

A small plant may be made to pimip suf- 
ficient water for a large tract by having a 
reservoir and running the pump every day 
when the sun shines, using the water only 
as needed. 

SMELTING ORES AND MINERALS. 

Any and all kinds of minerals can be 
smelted, or literally "burned up," if de- 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



297 



sired. A single yard of sunlight will melt 
silver, gold, glass or wrought iron to a 
liquid, while two yards square of sunlight 
will develop heat of over 25,000 degTees, or 
more than one hundred times as hot as boil- 
ing water. 




By courtesy of the Solar Furnace and Pot 
SOLAR FURNACE (FRONT VIEW). 



HOUSEHOLD USE. 

A small plant can be installed ou the 
roof of the house at a cost of only a few 
dollars. Attached to the water hydrant it 
works automatically and carries steam 
dovpn through pipes to the kitchen, where 
it is attached to a steam cooker cooking 
a dozen different kinds of food at the 
same time without fire, fuel or expense, 
and furnishing boiling water for the 
bath, the laundry and all other pur- 
poses. 

STORING HEAT AND POWER. 
Electric power is generated by a 
steam engine run by the solar furnace 
during the daytime and stored up in a 
storage battery to run machinery, and 
for heating, lighting, cooking and other 
purposes nights and cloudy days. The 
possibilities of the solar furnace are 
practically unlimited. 



A TELEGRAPH MACHINE THAT PRINTS 



Along with progress in other electrical 
devices has come the invention of a prac- 
tical printing telegraph machine. For 
years effort lias been expended to produce 
a contrivance that would print automatic- 
ally from electrical impulses sent over a 
wire from a distance, but the devices have 
operated poorly. To be sure, the stock 
"ticker" serves its purpose in a measure, 
and when not out of order, is worthy of 
great commendation. The mechanism, 
however, is so complicated thai the machine 
cannot be relied upon. 

ISI'ow comes from Australia a man named 
Donald Murray, who with great ingenuity, 
has perfected a device which to-day oper- 
ates in th.e offices of the Postal Telegraph 



Company in man}' cities, and before long- 
probably will find its way over two conti- 
nents. Labor saving is not so much the 
result aimed at and reached in this instru- 
ment as the tremendous saving in wire. 
When it is considered that a single copper 
wire from ISTew York to Chicago costs $60,- 
000, that it rents for $12,000 a year, and 
that the Murray system can, on one line, d^ 
the business of two or three, the saving m.ay 
be imagined readily. 

This device, the Page-Printing Tele- 
graph, is a series of instruments which au- 
tomatically receive upon a typewriter tele- 
grams sent over a single wire. There are 
four main instruments for sending and re- 
ceiving — two for each station. The send- 



298 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



ing instruments consist of a transmitting 
perforator and a modified Wheatstone 
transmitter. The receiving devices are a 
receiving perforator and an automatic 
typewriting attachment. 

Upon receiving a message for trans- 
mission, the operator sends it through the 
perforator, which is much like a type- 
writer. This device punctures a tape with 
little dots at irregular intervals. The ar- 
rangement gf these dots signifies certain 
letters. Tne perforator writes eighty-four 
characters. The tape is provided also with 
a central line of smaller punctures, which 
engage the teeth of feed-wheels in the ma- 
chines, thus insuring a steady flow as they 
are drawn through mechanically. After 
the message has heen perforated on the 
tape, the tape is fed through the trans- 
mitter. This instrument is so arranged 
that two small rods press against the tape, 
held in place hy small springs. When the 
rods are even with the perforations they 
push through for a moment and then are 
withdraAvn automatically. These rods serve 
to make and break an electrical current. 
This current is imparted to the wire, trav- 
eling as irregular impulses according to the 
spacing of the perforations. 

These impulses pass as signals to the re- 
ceiving station. The process of receiving 
the message is similar to that of its trans- 
mission, excepting that the latter is done by 
hand, whereas the former results from 
electrical energy. To aid in the receiving 
operation, there is a local electrical circuit. 
On this line are a punching relay, a gov- 
erning relay, a vibrator, a receiving pei^ 



forator and the automatic typewriter. 
The message arrives on the wire and the 
impulses are transformed into the local re- 
ceiving circuit. Automatically, the punch- 
ing machine perforates the series of ii-regu- 
lar dots in the receiving tape. The tape is 
then fed into the typewriter, which is so 
arranged that the perforations cause the 
proper keys to be lifted and the message to 
be printed in commercial form. 

The speed of the system is remarkable. 
The ordinary Morse system permits of 
about 25 words a minute. Under similar 
conditions, the Page-Printing Telegraph 
transmits and receives about 130 words dur- 
ing the same interval. The perforators can 
receive messages faster than the typewrit- 
ing machine can translate them in commer- 
cial form, but this is no drawback, as the 
tape at the receiving station can be torn at 
certain intervals and fed into several ma- 
chines at once. 

The design of Murray's skilfully con- 
trived apparatus, filed N"ovember 28, 1899, 
in the United States Patent Office, indicates 
how striking is the contrast between its deli- 
cate simplicity of construction and its great 
importance to telegraphy. Since he per- 
fected the instrmnent, however, the inventor 
has made claim for 37 distinct improve- 
ments on its various parts, which are now 
covered by three separate patents. The 
value of the invention in facilitating the 
operations of the Postal Telegraph Cable 
Company, to which the ownership otf the 
patent was assigned, cannot be over^ti^ 
mated. 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



299 



TIN-MAKING IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 



Originally the method of tinning plates 
Was the simple expedient of dipping them 
in a bath of molten tin and allowing the 
surplus metal to drain off ; but about thirty 
or forty years ago, a Mr. Morewood, of 



which seize the plate as it comes up and 
roll off the surplus tin, leaving a smooth 
and even coating of the metal. 

Even this system has been improved, and 
to-day the rolls are submerged inside the 




By courtesy of the Scientific American. 
TINNING MACHINE. 
With Bennett Magnetic Catcher for removing tinned plates as they come from the rolls. 



South vVales, Great Britain, designed a 
tinning machine which has since revolu- 
tionized the tinning process. The system 
consists of placing at the surface of the pot 
A gair of very carefully turned steel rods, 



tinning pots in the hot metal and oil baths, 
and as the plates pass through, while the 
coating process is going on, it leaves a uni- 
form coating and a highly polished sur- 
face. In the manufacture of high-grad« 



300 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



roofing tin, the hand process of dipping is 
still maintained. 

In this hand-dipping process, known as 
the "MF Style," the plates pass through 
four or five different pots filled respectively 




By courtesy of the Scientific 
THE CUTTING AND DOUBLING SHEARS. 



■with metal or palm oil. The plates made 
by this process resist attacks of the atmos- 
phere more thoroughly than plates made 
in the ''coke" tinning process. Eecently, 
a new method of finishing has 
been introduced. In this method, 
the plates after coming out of the 
last old-style of "MF." tinning 
bath, are immersed immediately 
in an oily substance, the tem- 
perature of which is below the 
melting point of the coating 
metal, and an instantaneous and 
uniform settling of the coating 
metal is thereby effected on all 
parts of the sheets alike, 

A sectional illustration of a 
modern tinning machine is here- 
with given, which shows very 
clearly its construction. The 
heavy cast-iron tin pot is carried in 
setting, and the tin is kept molten by a 
furnace below the pot. In the bottom of the 
pot is about 14 inches of the molten tin. 



and above this on the discharging side are 
12 inches of palm oil. The black plate is 
introduced into the tin pot through the 
hopper (A). This hopper holds a chem- 
ical fluid, the weight of which is less in 
specific gravity than the mol- 
ten tin, and which in combina- 
tion with the tin and iron, 
causes a galvanic action by 
which the iron and tin are 
quickly and thoroughly amal- 
gamated. The tinner pushes 
the plate downward with a pair 
of tongs over the curved guide 
bars until it is seized by the 
first pair of rolls known as the 
American. af^^^ ^.^^g,, marked (B) in 

the picture. By these it is 
drawn through the molten tin into the up- 
ward curved hopper (C), in which are run- 
ning two pairs of rolls (D D). The top 
pair is partly visible and partly immersed 




brick 



By courtesy of the Scientific American. 
THE BRANNER. 



in the palm oil which covers the tin on this 
side of the machine. These rolls are held 
suspended in a machine frame and are 
regulated by means of screw-adjusted 



302 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 




By courtesy of the Scientific American. 
PLACING BLOCK TIN. 



springs (E E). Upon the adjustment de- 
pends the thickness of the coating of tin 
given to the plate. 

As the plates come out of the rolls they 
are picked up by a mechanical figure with 
arms and fingers, which stands above tlie 
finishing pot, taking the place of a man. 
It seizes the plates as they rise through the 
rolls, swings them sidewise, comes to a stop 
automatically, drops the plate into a bran- 
ner, and comes back to its original point of 
action, repeating the operation in rapid 
succession. 

The "Bennett" device for 
transfer/ iug the plates from 
the tinning pot to the bran- 
nei- consists of a revolving 
drum with the points of con- 
tact with the plates mag- 
1 electrical con- 



nection. As the plates leave the tin 
pot, they have upon them a thin 
coating of oil which has to be removed. 
For this purpose they are put into a 
branner which is located conveniently 
at the side of the tinning machine. 
The branner consists of an inclosed 
wood and metal box, through which 
a series of carriers (C) are continu- 
ally traveling on an endless belt. The 
plate (B), as it comes from the tin- 
ning machine, is placed in a rack (A), 
which is so located that the plate will 
caught up by the traveling racks 
and by them carried through the ma- 
The interior of the branner is 



be 
(C), 
chine. 

filled with bran and slack lime and as the 
carrier travels, it forces the plate through 
the bran and lime, which cleans oS the de- 
posit of palm oil. After the plate has 
passed through, it drops into what is 
knowm as the "duster," where it is passed 
slowly through a rapidly revolving pair of 
sheep-covered rollers, which clean off the 
residue of the palm oil and impart a finish- 




By courtesy of ttie Scientific American. 
SECTIONAL VIEW OP TINNING POT. 



SCIENCE, IXVEXTIOX AXD DISCOVERY 



303 



ing touch or polish to the plate. There are 
three of these sheepskin rollers and by the 
time the plate has passed through the set, it 



shows the beautiful finish for -whichi tin 
plate is noted. 



POULTRY KILLING BY MACHINERY 



Poultry-killing by machinery is the 
latest innovation made by the big packors 
at the Union Stock Yards, Chicago. In 
olden times the method used for slaughter- 
ing fowls was to catch them and wring 



THE FATTENING ROOM. 

In describing this twentieth-century 
method of slaughter, let us begin at the 
time Avhen the chicken or turkey reaches 
the packing house- The fowls arrive in car 




BILLING 10,000 CHICKENS, 8,000 DUCKS AND 6,000 TUEKEYS PEK DAY, 



their necks or chop off their heads with an 
ax or large cleaver. To-day that process 
has been superseded by one that, while it 
may not seem humane, is by far the most 
rapid method ever introduced for killing 
ehickens, ducks, geese or turkeys. 



lots and are at once transferred to the 
"feeding-room," where they are kept for 
ninety days, to "fill out." Then, if at 
the end of that period they are found to 
be fat enough to slaughter, the killing is 
begun. 



304 



SCIEXCE, IXVEXTIOX AXD DISCOVERY 



THE KILLING FLOOR. 

From the feeding room to the ''killing 
floor" there is a c^iute through which the 
fowls are "shot" into a cage Avhich acts as 
a receptacle on the floor below. Standing 
directly in front of this cage is a man 
whose duty is to lift the birds from the 
cage and place them upon an endless chain, 
which runs directly in front of him. In 
placing the fowl upon the endless chain it 
is turned upside down, both feet being 
placed in small prongs, spread a sufficient 
distance apart to make picking possible. 

Then a weighted tin can, which weighs 
about eight ounces, is attached to the bill 
of the fowl by. a "snap." The bird is still 
alive. 

This ends the man's duty at the cage, 
and the bird moves along to the next man, 
who sticks an awl into its gullet, which kills 
it. Then the blood drips dowTi into the 
weighted can and later finds its way to the 
fertilizer works, where it is utilized. After 
this operation the bird continues on its 
way, passing en route 20 men, each of 
whom, in turn, removes a few of the feath- 
ers as it passes along. Eight of these men 
are stationed inside a great iron cage, and 
it is their duty to pick off the best feathers, 
which are saved and sold to pillow manu- 
facturers. 



AMien the fowl has reached the end of the 
chain it is taken off by a man and passed 
over to an inspector. Should there still 
remain any small feathers upon it, it ia 
taken to a hook which projects from the 
Tv'all, and there gone over by a "cleaner." 
At the conclusion of this operation, if the 
inspector is satisfied, it is placed upon the 
racks, and within a few minutes, is wheeled 
into the big coolers. This is what is known 
as the dry picking process. 

THE SCALDING PROCESS. 

There is also a scalding process, which 
is operated upon a similar plan, only that 
after the bird has been "stuck," it is drawn 
along on an endless chain, which carries it 
through a "scalding tub," where the feath- 
ers are removed. It then goes into a "cool- 
ing tub," and later, finds its way to the 
cooler. 

So rapid is this method of killing fowl, 
that in a day of ten hours, 10,000 chickens. 
8,000 ducks and 6,000 turkeys may be 
slaughtered. The average wages earned by 
men in this department are $1.75 per day. 
It is not an uncommon thing for the pack- 
ers to have 40,000 fowls in the "feed room" 
at one time. This enables the shippers tc 
cool and pack to advantage. 




GIGANTIC ICEBERG Ot KORIHEEN GREENLAND. 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



305 



THE 

WIRELESS 
TELEPHONE 

We have had the telephone for more 
than a quarter of a century in practical 
working use, and have begun to think of it 
no longer as extraordinary. In truth, how- 
ever, the advances and improvements in 
the ordinary telephone since the first suc- 
cessful experiments were made, mark al- 
most as great progress as did the original 
invention itself. Of very recent success 
are the experiments of Marconi with wire- 
less telegraphy, an astounding and import- 
ant advance over the ordinary system of 
telegraphy through wires. !Now comes the 
announcement that an American inventor, 
unheralded and modest, has carried out 
successful experiments in telephoning and 
is able to transmit speech for great dis- 
tances without wires. 

The inventor is ]Srathan Stubblefield. 
The first public test of telephoning with- 
out wires was made at the Kentucky vil- 
lage where the inventor lived, on the first 
day of January, 1902, only a few weeks 
after Marconi's success in signaling across 
the Atlantic by telegraph without wires. 

The next demonstration was made ten 
days later for a newspaper correspondent 
from St. Louis and the account of it was 
published in detail in that city. The in- 
vestigator wrote as follows in regard to 
what he learned : 

"Mr. Stubblefield has worked for ten 
years to discover an apparatus by which 
he could overcome the use of wires in tele- 
phoning, during which time he has l'*"- 



come a technical electrician of high order. 
He has kept in touch with all the leading 
electricians, and is familiar with every im- 
portant discovery in the field of electricity. 
ISTaturally he has been a close observer of 
the work of Marconi. 

"The transmitting apparatus is con- 
cealed in a box. Two wires of the thick- 
ness of a lead pencil coil from its corners 
and disappear through the walls of the 
room, and enter the ground outside. On 
top of the box is an ordinary telephone 
transmitter and a telephone switch. This 
is the machine through which the voice 
of the sender is passed into the ground, to 
be transmitted by the earth's electrical 
waves to the ear of the person who has an 
instrument capable of receiving and repro- 
ducing it. 

"We went into tha cornfield back of the 
house. After walking five hundred yards 
we came to the experimental station the 
inventor has used for several months. It 
is a dry goods box fastened to the top of 
a stump. A roof to shed the rain has been 
placed on top of it ; one side is hinged for 
a door, and the wires connected with the 
ground on both sides run into it and are 
attached to a pair of telephone receivers. 
The box was built as a shelter from the 
weather, and as a protection to the re- 
ceivers. I took a seat in the box and Mr, 
Stubblefield shouted a 'hello' to the house. 
This was a signal to his son to begin send- 
ing messages. I placed the receiver to my 
ears and listened. Presently there came 
with extraordinary distinctness several 
spasmodic buzzings and then a voice which 
said : 'Hello, can you hear me ? Now I 
will count ten. One — two — three — four — 
five — six — seven — eight — nine — ten. Did 
you hear that ? Now I will whisper,' 



306 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



"I heard as clearly as if the speaker 
were only across a 12-foot room the ten 
numerals whispered, 'i^ow I will whis- 




MR. STUBBLEFIELD RECEIVING MESSAGES BY 

Note the two steel rods in the ground, which establish 

currents of the earth, being connected by 

attached to the receiver. 



tie/ said the voice. For a minute or more 
the tuneless whistle of a boy was con- 
veyed to the listener's ears, 'I am going 



to play the mouth organ now,' said the 
voice. Immediately came the strains of a 
harmonica played without melody, but the 
notes were clear and 
unmistakable. 'I will 
now repeat the pro- 
gram,' said the voice, 
and it did. 

"A n examination 
of the station 
showed that the wires 
leading from the re- 
ceivers terminated in 
steel rods, each of 
which was tapped 
with a hollow nickel- 
plated ball of iron, 
below which was an 
inverted metal cup. 
The wire enters the 
ball at the top and is 
attached to the rod. 
The rod is thrust 
into the ground two- 
thirds of its length. 
Another test was 
made after the rods 
had been drawn from 
the ground and thrust 
into it again at a spot 
chosen haphazard by 
the correspondent. 
Again the 'hello' 
signal was made 
by Stubblefield, and 
after a few minutes 
wait came the mys- 
terious 'Hello! Can 
you hear me?' and 
a repetition of the program of counted 
numerals, whispers, whistling and harmon- 
ica playing. 



WIRELESS TELEPHONE, 
ilectrical 



SCTEXCE, T^\ ENTTON AXn BTSCOYEBY 



?m 



" 'Now,' said Mr. Stubblefield, wlio car- 
ried under his arm duplicates of the ball- 
tipped steel-rods. 'I wish you would lead 
the way. Go where you will, sink the rods 
into the ground and listen for a telephone 



"Away we went, down a wagon track, 
through the wide cornfield. A gate was 
opened into a lane between the hedge that 
bordered the field and a dense oak woods. 
We pursued the lane for about 500 yards 
and struck into the woods. I led the way. 
Into the heart of the woods we walked for 
nearly a mile. In a ravine I stopped. 
'How far are we from the house now?' I 
asked. 'About a mile,' Stubblefield an- 
swered. 'Place the rods where you will 
and listen for a telephone message.' 

"I took the four rods from Stubblefield. 
Each pair of rods was joined by an ordi- 
nary insulated wire about 30 feet long, in 
the center of which was a small round tele- 
phone receiver. Two of the rods were sunk 
in the ground, about half their length, the 
wires between them hanging loosely, and 
with plenty of play. I placed a receiver 
at each ear and waited. In a few moments 
came the signal and the voice of Stubble- 
field's son. The voice was quite as clear 
and distinct as it was 500 yards from the 
transmitting station. The rods were 
moved here and there, but always the mes- 
sage came." 

N'athan Stubblefield comes from a fam- 
ily distinguished in his locality. His father 
was a lawyer, much respected in that part 
of Kentucky. His brothers are merchants 
and leaders in the community. But l^a- 
than Stubblefield is another type. He cares 
only for his home, his family, and electric- 
ity. He educates his children in person, 
and after seeing that his family is well pro- 



vided for, spends the remainder of his sub- 
stance in electrical experiments. 

His son, Bernard B. Stubblefield, 14 
years of age, has been for four years his 
father's sole assistant. He is a remarkable 
boy. His father has been his only educator, 
and the lad is now an expert electrician and 
reads abstruse works on electricity and 
technical electrical journals with the same 
zest that other boys read stories of travel 
and adventures. His father says of the 
boy that he would be able to carry out and 
finish this system of wireless telephony 
should the father die, so closely has he 
been allied with every step in its discovery 
and development. 

"I have been working for this, ten or 
twelve years," he said. "Long before I 
heard of Marconi's efforts, or the efforts of 
others, to solve the problem of transmission 
of messages through space without wires, 
I began to think about it and work for it. 
This solution is not the result of an in- 
spiration or the work of a minute. It is 
the climax of the labor of years. Of course 
I worked along the lines all the others are 
working. The earth, the air, the water, all 
the universe, as we know it, is permeated 
with the remarkable fluid which we call 
electricity, the most wonderful of God's 
gifts to the world, and capable of the most 
inestimable benefits when it is mastered by 
man. For years I have been trying to make 
the bare earth do the work of the wires. I 
know how that I have conquered it. The 
electrical fluid that pei-meates the earth car- 
ries the human voice, transmitted to it by 
any apparatus, with much more clarity and 
lucidity than it does over wires. I have 
solved the problem of telephoning without 
wires through the earth, as Signor Marconi 
has of sending signals through space. But 



308 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



I can also telephone withont wires through 
space as well as through the earth, because 
my medium is everywhere. 

"As to the practicability of my inven- 
tion, all that I claim for it now is that it is 
capable of sending simultaneous messages 
from a central distributing station over a 
very wide territory. For instance, any one 
having a receiving instrument, which would 
consist merely of a telephone receiver and 
a few feet of wire, and a signaling gong, 
could, upon being signaled by a trans- 
mitting station in Washington, or nearer, 
if advisable, be informed of weather news. 
Eventually it will be used for the general 
transmission of news of every description. 
1 have as yet devised no method whereby 
it can be used with privacy. Wherever 
there is a receiving station the signal and 
message may be heard simultaneously. 
Eventually I, or some one, will discover a 
method of tuning the transmitting and re- 
ceiving instruments so that each will an- 
swer only to its mate. 

"I claim for my apparatus that it will 
work as well through air and water as it 
does through the earth. That it will con- 
vey messages between the land and sea, for 
instance, from lighthouses to ships, from 
vessels in any part of the ocean to vessels 
or their owners on land, if each carry my 
transmitters and receivers; it can be used 
on moving trains so that they may be 
spoken between stations and thus prevent 
accidents. There is no conceivable position 
or station in which they may not be used. 
The all-enveloping electricity, the medium 
of carriage, insures that. The curvature 
of the earth means nothing to me — it will 
not deter messages sent by my apparatus. 
I have shown what my machine will do 
through the earth by grounding the wires. 



I will say that it is not absolutely 
necessary to ground the wires. I can 
send messages with one wire in the 
ground, the other in the air, or with no 
wires at all. In fact, my first and crude 
experiments were made without ground 
wires. I have sent messages by means 
of a cumbersome and incomplete machine 
through a brick wall and several other walls 
of lath and plaster without wires of any 
description. The present method of 
grounding wires merely insures greater 
power in transmission. Several years ago 
I invented an earth cell which derived 
enough electrical energy from the sur- 
rounding source to run a small motor con- 
tinuously for two months and six days 
without being touched. There was enough 
energy in the motor to run a clock and 
other small pieces of machinery or ring a 
large gong. This earth cell can be greatly 
magnified. Its discovery was the begin- 
ning of my experiments with wireless tele- 
phony. The earth cell was merely buried 
in the ground and connected by wires with 
the motor. The earth's electrical currents 
supplied it with power. The expense of 
my wireless telephony apparatus will not 
be great — not greater than that used for 
ordinary telephoning, minus the present 
enormous cost of wiring." 

In May Mr. Stubblefield went to Wash- 
ington and conducted a public test in the 
presence of a number of scientists and capi- 
talists from New York and Chicago. These 
tests were made on board a steamer on the 
Potomac Eiver and on land nearby. Dur- 
ing the land tests, complete sentences, fig- 
ures and music were heard at a distance of 
several hundred yards, and conversation 
was as distinct as by the ordinary wire 
telephone. Persons each carrying a re- 



SCTKXCE, IXVEXTIOX AX J) DISCOVERY 



^,09 



ceiver and transmitter with two steel rods, 
walking about at some distance from the 
stationary station, were enabled to in- 
stantly open communication by thrusting 
the rods into the ground at any point. An 
even more remarkable test resulted in the 
maintenance of com- 
munication between 
a station on the shore 
and a steamer an- 
chored several hun- 
dred feet from the 
shore. Communica- 
tion between the 
steamer and the shore 
was opened by drop- 
ping the wires from 
the apparatus o n 
board the vessel into 
water at the stern of 
the boat. 

An interesting ar- 
ticle by Professor A. 
Frederick Collins, the 
well-kno'mi electrical 
scientist in the ''Elec- 
trical World and En- 
gineer," relates his ob- 
servation of the dem- 
onstrations of wire- 
less telephony and 
gives his opinion as 
to the practical value 
of the invention. He 
says in part: 

"There are many 
instances where an 
cannot be employed 
tion let me cite a 



owing to a railroad operating the adjoining 
properties, permission could not be ob- 
tained to stretch the wires; as an experi- 
ment the wireless telephone was tried, and 
with success. Another case was in the 
Thousand Islands, where a cable was laid 




NATHAN STUBBLEFIELD 



ordinary telephone 
As an illustra- 
f ew cases : Two 
families lived only 1,500 feet apart, and 
where telephones costing $25 per pair 
would have answered the purpose, but 



from an island to the main land, at a cost 
of $2,000 ; here, again, a wireless telephone 
could have served the purpose at a cost not 
exceeding $200. A third case is in IRar- 
beth, where the borough officials will not 
permit the Bell Telephone company to erect 



310 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVEBY 



ypoles. Two physicians liave had telephones 
lin their residences for nearly a year, hop- 
ing that the- Bell people would effect con- 
nection with their lines, one-fourth and one- 
half mile away. The contention was a mat- 
ter of one narrow street. This distance 
could have been easily bridged by means of 
a wireless telephone; in fact, communica- 
tion was established between one of the 
)'esidences and the writer's laboratory, 
where three streets intersected the line of 
wave propagation, but as it took place un- 
der the surface of the earth, no one Objected 
to it. But the most useful sphere of the 
wireless telephone, and the one which the 
writer has ever advocated, is its application 
to vessels in harbors. The wireless tele- 
phone is a first-hand instrument ; it is sim- 
ple, reliable, and it may be applied to any 
vessel at a comparatively small cost. 

"The synchronization of wireless tele- 
phony is one of the knotty problems. It is 
this question that staggers the most san- 
guine ; but if one had asked Professor Bell, 
in 18Y6, how any two of 40,000 subscribers 
might be put into instant communication 
one with the other, he, doubtless, would 
have found it difficult to even picture in 
his mind's eye the modern central station 
switchboard. It must be remembered that 
the wire telephone has had engaged in its 
improvement the brightest scientists, the 
most original investigators of the world for 
a period of over a quarter of a century, and 
this experience and application has brought 
the 'toy' to be one of the most potent factors 
of the commercial world. Would that a 
little of such applied energy could be put 
on the wireless telephone." 

As an evidence that the practical value 
of the wireless telephone is recognized, the 
Gordon Telephone Company of Charleston, 



South Carolina, promptly ordered a com- 
plete equipment to connect that city with 
the sea islands along the coast. Only a 
year before, that company spent $35,000 j 

in one winter to install and maintain its ■ 

marine cables, and the president of the 
company estimated that an equally satis- 
factory service by wireless telephone would 
have cost but $2,500 to install. 

The wireless telephone is practical — this 
has been amply demonstrated — hut the op- 
portunity for its satisfactory use is limited. 
"Where there is a multiplicity of messages, 
as in an exchange, there is a liability of in- 
terruption and "mixture," messages be- 
coming intertangled. The same is true as 
to the danger of interruption from wireless 
telegraph "waves." At the same time 
there are places and occasions when the 
wireless telephone system may be employed 
to advantage. One of these, for instance, 
is in speaking over a reasonable distance 
of water, where it would be difficult or im- 
possible to stretch a wire, as from Key 
West, Florida, to Cuba. Ordinary tele- 
phonic communication by submarine cable 
between these points is not satisfactory, 
but the wireless phone has been found to '' 
work well when it has a clear field ; that is, 
when there is no multiplicity of similar 
messages, or interruptions by wireless tele- 
graph. The United States government has 
equipped many of its war vessels with the 
wireless telephone apparatus for communi- 
cation at short distances, say from ten to 
fifteen miles, and, under favorable condi- 
tions, it has been found to work well. As a 
general proposition, however, it has no 
particular advantages over the wireless 
'telegraph, aside from the fact that the 
voice of the speaker may be heard and 
identified. 



SCIEXCE, IXVEXTIOX AXD DL^COVEUY 



;ni 



SILK COCOONS, AND THE SILK INDUSTRY 



The Illustrations in this article are furnished by the courtesy of Belding Bros. & Co. 

berry tree, consuming double its weight 
daily. In five weeJis, it attains its full 
growtb, having increased 8,000 times in 
weight. It is then three inches long, and 
as thick as a large, lead pencil. 



The art of reeling, or producing raw 
silk, has been carried on in China for ages, 
and so well did the orientals guard the 
secret of silk culture that the nature of the 
fibre was unknown in Europe for more 
than a thousand years after silk fabrics had 
been introduced there. China still takes 
the lead in the production of raw silk; but 
large quantities also 
are obtained from 
Japan, India, France 
and Italy. Every silk 
article ever made or 
exhibited was origin- 
ally in the cocoon con- 
dition, and the fibre 
had to be put through 
a great variety of pro- 
cesses before it was 
finally ready to be 
woven into fabrics. 
The idea is quite com- 
mon that the silk 
threads or fibres as 
they come from the 
cocoon are ready for 
the weaving loom 
without further work 
or preparation, but the fibres, after coming 
from the cocoon, must be manufactured 
before they can become of any value. 

THF SILK MOTH AND THE SILK ■WOEIC 

The little bright colored silk moth de- 
posits from 400 to 600 eggs, and then dis- 
appears and soon dies. The eggs, on being 
exposed to a temperature of 65 or 70 de- 
grees, hatch rapiyily, each one producing a 
short brown worm, which, with a ravenous 
appetite, feeds upon the leaves of the mul- 



THE SILK COCOON. 

The worm now seeks a convenient place 




FEEDING THE SILK WORil. 

to begin the formation of its cocoon, which 
is to protect it in the changes incident to 
caterpillar life. Having selected a site, it 
ejects from two small tubes near the mouth, 
a liquid, gummy substance which adheres to 
whatever may be within reach ; thus an- 
chored, the next move of the body in the 
opposite direction draws out the silked 
fibre. The worm then turns over an'd over 
toward the center of the cocoon, and pays 
out the silked cable as it goes, until it has 
spun itself almost to death, and has built 



312 



SCTEXCE, IXVEXTTON AXD DISCOVERY 




COCOON— END VIEW. 
(Enlarged.) 

around itself a cocoon of silked thread 
about a quarter of a mile long. 

Thus imprisoned, the insect remains, if 
undisturbed, for about 15 days, -when the 
end of the cocoon is m^oistened, and it 
emerges in the form of a moth. This, how- 
ever, causes the fibre of the cocoon to be 
badly tangled and twisted, so that it is 
necessary to kill the insect before it comes 
from the cocoon. This is done about eight 
days after the cocoon has been finished, by 
exposing it to the direct rays of the sun 
at a temperature of 100 to 125 degrees, 
HEELING THE COCOON INTO HAW SILK 

The cocoons are now " 

ready to be reeled into 
raw silk. This is a 
very important opera- 
tion, as everything de- 
pends upon the reeling, 
and the quality of the 
silk will be good or bad, 
according to the man- 
ner in which it is done. 
In silk countries the 



making of the cocoons is carried on as a 
separate business, distinct from the raising 
of silk worms, the cocoons being sold out- 
right to the reeling establishments, which 
are known as "filatures." 

If the reeling has been indifferently per- 
formed, the silk may not sell for more than 
$4 a pound, but if well reeled it may bring 
$6 to $7, and even more, depending upon 
the demand at the time. It is also a pe- 
culiar fact, that of r\vo reelers, each reel- 
ing half a poun'd of cocoons of the same 
quality, one will be able to obtain but 6 or 
61/2 ounces, and another will obtain 8 
ounces. 

The filaments of the cocoon are cemented 
together with a gum, and to dissolve this 
gum requires the aid of hot water. The 
cocoons are placed, from 6 to 10 at a time, 
in a basin of hot water, and sunk by the 
aid of a whisk broom below the surface, 
where they are allowed to remain from two 
to three minutes. This softens the gum and 
loosens the fibre ; then, moving the whisk 
broom very lightly over the cocoons, the 
ends of the fibres will adhere to it and are 
easily found. 

The ends of the fibres from each cocoon 
in the basin are then collected together to 
form one thread, which is passed through a 




SCIEXCE, IXVEXTTOX AXD DTSCOVEFY 



313 




RATi' SILK. 
First Process, Winding. 

guide eye and tied to one of tlie barbs of 
the reel, and the reeling begins. 

The reels are usually turned by hand, al- 
though, occasionally, electric power is used. 
The reel must be so far away from the basin 
that the gum of the fibres has a chance 
to dry and cool before it passes onto the 
reel, otherwise the fibres would become 
firmly cemented together. It is also im- 
portant that the reel should be moved at a 
certain uniform rate of speed. The whole 
operation is tedious and necessarily ex- 
pensive, as five ounces of well-reeled silk 
represents about ten hours' labor by an ex- 
pert reeler. 

The reels are usually about TO inches in 
circumference and have a traverse rod 
which properly distributes the thread over 
a surface two or three inches wide. So fine 
are the fibres which come from the cocoons 
that they are almost invisible to an inex- 
perienced eye, and the reeler does not de- 
pend upon seeing them, but gets notice of a 
broken subdivision by discovering one of 
the cocoons at rest on the water, while the 
others are still in motion. 

This rupture must be instantly repaired 



if a uniform thread of raw silk is to be 
obtained. A supply of cocoons is kept 
close at hand so that as fast as the fibre in 
one is exliausted, another is put in its place. 
The ends are joined by a dexterous move- 
ment of the reeler, who carries the end of 
a reserve cocoon fibre to a point just below 
the g-uide eye, where the natural gummy 
substance found on the silk, assisted by the 
movement of the reel, causes adherence to 
the main thread. 

Thus no tying of knots takes place in a 
single fibre of the silk while reeling, al- 
though in case of a break in all of the fibres, 
which is not common, a fresh start must be 
made, and a small knot is made, hardly 
perceptible in the after stages which the silk 
passes through. The skeins of raw silk are 
reeled from one to several ounces, as de- 
sired, and, on being removed from the reels, 
are dried and neatly packed into books or 
bundles weighing from 5 to 10 pounds. 
These books are then packed and sold in 
bales containing 133 1-3 pounds each, 
which is the way in which the raw silk 
reaches this country. 




314 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DTSCOYERY 




THE TWISTING PROCESS. 
SPINinNG IN THE FACTORY. 

On reaching the factories where the 
manufacture of this raw silk is carried on, 
the skeins are soaked in tepid soapsuds for 
several hours to soften the gum, after 
which they are placed on light "swifts" and 
wound off onto bohbins. This makes the 
raw silk soft and pliable and gives a certain 
lustre to it. These bobbins are placed 
upon pins projecting from the bobbin 
board of a doubling frame, and from two to 
ten threads, or even more, are drawn off col- 
lectively onto one bobbin, which is next 
placed upon a rapidly revolving spinning- 
frame spindle. The threads, while being- 
drawn from the bobbins to the spindle, are 
given the requisite amount of twist. These 
spindles revolve so rapidly as to appear to 
be motionless, a speed of 10,000 revolutions 
a minute not being a t all unusual. 

The thread is now drawn from the 
spindles and doubled and twisted, and for 
some purposes is again doubled and twisted, 
?o that m an ordinary three-cord sewing silk 



it is quite possible to have 200 or even more 
of the original, gossamer threads which 
came from the cocoon, and the lightest 
grades of thread contain, at least, from 75 
to 80 of the fibres. 

DYEING AND SPOOLING THE SKEINS. 

The next operation is reeling the silk 
into hanks of skeins for dyeing, which is 
one of the most important of the various 
processes, and requires experience as well 
as knowledge. After being dyed the thread 
is wound on spools, as desired, this opera- 
tion being performed with great rapidity 
and accuracy by automatic machinery. 

The silk cocoons vary in color from a 
delicate white to a dark yellow, depending 
to a great extent on the food of the worm 
and the locality in which it grew. 




WEAVING SILK. 



SCIEXCE, IXVEXTIOX AXD DISCOVERY 



315 



MAKING LEAD PENCILS 



COMPOSITION OF THE LEADS. 

The ''leads'' of lead pencils are made of 
a mixture of German pipe clay and "black 
lead", which is not lead, but graphite. But 
the first pencils were made of real lead and 
the name has clung to ''lead" pencils ever 
since. Graphite, or plumbago, is a nearly 
pure form of carbon and most of the pencils 
made in this country use the graphite 
mined at Ticonderoga, Vermont, where the 



a number of tanks, collecting at the bottom 
of these reservoirs. It is packed in barrels 
in the form of dust and sent to the factor;)', 
where tens of thousands of lead pencils are 
turned out every day. 

The pulverized graphite is so fine that it 
really is dust; it is dingy in color, and 
smooth and oily to the touch. It is divided 
into various grades of fineness by floating 
it on water from one tank to another. Thg 




SORTING OUT GRAPHITE (PHTMBAGOU, 

For makinf; Lead Pencils. 



only graphite mine of any consequence in 
the United States is located. 

GRAPHITE. 

The graphite is taken in the lump from 
the mines and carried to the reducing mill, 
where it is ground or pulverized in stamp 
mills under water. The fine particles of 
graphite float away with the water through 



coarse dust sinks to the bottom of the first 
tank, the next finer, to the bottom of the 
next and so on down the line, the finest 
powder, for the finest pencils, settling in 
the last tank. 

GERMAN PIPE CLAY. 

In another series of tanks the German 
pipe clay, which is mixed with graphite to 



316 



SCIENCE, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 



secure the different grades of hardness, is 
graded in the same manner by floating. 
The finest clay is mixed with the finest 
graplaite, and the hardness of the pencil is 
secured by increasing the proportion of 
clay in the mixture. For medium grades 
seven j^arts, by Aveight, of clay are mixed 
with ten parts of graphite. 

PROCESS OF MIXING. 

The mixing is done under a grinding 
mill similar to that used in mixing paint, 
and water is added to facilitate the mixing. 
The grinding stones are about two feet in 
diameter and only the upper one revolves. 
After the graphite and clay are ground to- 
gether the mixture is put into canvas bags 
and the water is squeezed out under hy- 
draulic press, leaving the mass the con- 
sistency of putty. This plastic material is 
placed in the forming press, which is a 
small iron cylinder in which a solid plunger 
or piston works up and down. A steel plate 
having a hole the size and shape of the 
"lead", is put under the open end of the 
cullender, and the plunger, pressing down, 
forces the graphite through the hole, mak- 
ing a continuous thread or wire of graphite. 
As long as this thread is moist it is pli- 
able, but it becomes brittle when dry, so it 
is handled rapidly. It is cut in three-lead 
lengths, straightened out, and then hard- 
ened in a crucible over a coal fire. The 
leads when taken from the crucible are 
ready for the wood. 

DIFFERENT KINDS OF WOOD FOR 
PENCII-S. 

Pine is itsed for cheap pencils, an ordi- 
nary quality of red cedar is used for better 
pencils, and nothing but Florida Key cedar 
is used in the best. 



CUTTING CEDAB. STRIPS. 

The sawmills at Tampa, Florida, cut the 
cedar blocks about seven inches long, and 
these are sawed into strips wide enough for 
six pencils; but as pencils are made in 
halves, each strip is thick enough only for 
a half pencil. When these strips are re- 
ceived in the factory they are run through 
a machine which cuts in each one six 
grooves, round or square, and at the same 
time smooths the face of the wood. 

FILLING THE STRIPS WITH LEAD. 

The filling of the strips is done by girls. 
The first one takes a grooved strip of wood 
in her left hand and a bunch of leads in 
her right. She spreads the leads out fan 
shape, and with one motion fills the six 
grooves with leads. 'Next to lier sits an- 
other girl who takes the filled strip, and 
quickly and neatly lays on it another 
grooved strip, which has just been given a 
coat of glue by a third girl. 

THE FINISHING PROCESS. 

The filled and glued strips are piled up 
and put in a press to dry. The ends 
of the strips are evened off under a 
sanfdpaper wheel, and then the strips are 
fed into a machine which cuts out 
the individual pencils, shapes them and 
delivers them smooth and ready for the 
color polish in six streams. The color- 
ing is done in liquid dyes, after the pencils 
have been sent through the varnish ma- 
chine. Then follows the stamping, finish- 
mg and counting. This latter work is done 
by quickly filling a board having 144 holes 
in it, thus counting out a gross of pen- 
cils. 



THINGS WE ALL SHOULD KNOW 



Man's Hunt for the North Pole 



Organized search for the North Pole be- 
gan in 1585, when John Davis entered 
Baffin's Bay, and penetrated the Arctic 
Circle. Since then there has been a long 
procession of adventurous explorers, the 
journeys of many of whom were attended 
with great 



It was not until Mr. Bradley returned to 
his home in October, 1907, that the world 
knew that Cook had pushed on northward 
in an effort to reach the Pole, parting from 
Bradley at Etah, Greenland. Nothing 
more was heard from Cook until the fol- 
lowing 
spring 
when 
F r ancke, 
return- 
ing mem- 




LIEUTENANT PEARY IN CIVILIAN AND IN EXPLORING GARB, 

been on the trail for 



Franklin 

made in 18-45, and on which the leader 

and his entire party of 130 men perished. 

Another disastrous expedition was that 

made by Lieut. A. W. Greely, U. S. A., in 

1881-84, in which twelve men lost their 

lives. 

It was on September 1st, 1909, that Dr. 
Frederick A. Cook startled the world with 
a message from the Shetland Isles, stating 
that he had discovered the North Pole on 
April 21st, 1908. Dr. Cook started on his 
voyage July 3rd, 1907, from Gloucester, 
Mass., on a fishing trip to Labrador, as 
the guest of John R. Bradley, of New York. 



Cook had 
on the trail for only two weeks 
and had not made much progress. 
Eighteen months later announcement was 
made by Cook that he had located the Pole 
at latitude 90. On his return to this coun- 
try Cook was feted and lionized, and made 
a great deal of money by the delivering of 
lectures. His description of the trip, with 
its privations, hardships and sufferings, 
was thrillingly dramatic. 

Just five days after the Avorld had been 
informed of Cook's claim, a similar mes- 
sage was received from Lieut. Robert E. 
Peary, U. S. N., who had also been making 




SAILING SLEDGES ON THE GRAND CANAL OF CHINA. 
In Winter as in summer the Chinese -waterways are the chief arteries of traffic. To assist his progress 
the ingenious Chinaman rigs up a sail in the manner pictured. 



THINGS WE ALL SHOULD KNOW 



319 



a hunt for the Pole. Peary's message was 
sent from Indian Harbor, Labrador, Sep- 
tember 6th, 1909. In subsequent messages 
he gave the date of his discovery as April 
6th, 1909, nearly a year later than the date 
set by Cook. A bitter controversy between 
the partisans of the two explorers began. 
Neither voyager had anything in the way 
of documentary proof to submit in support 
of his assertion, and the matter was finally 
taken up by the Danish Geographical So- 
ciety at Copenhagen which, after examin- 
ation of the data submitted by Cook, re- 
ported adA'ersely on his claim. Cook then 
dropped out of sight for nearly a year and 
was not heard from again until December, 
1910, when he published an article in an 
American magazine admitting that he was 
not positive he had reached the Pole, and 
if he had there was no way of proving it. 

According to the map drawn by Cook 
he made his way from Annatok, his base 
of supplies, across Ellesmere Land to Nan- 
sen's Sound, and then directly north across 
the ice to latitude 90. Returning, he came 
south to Ringnes Land and thence south- 
east to Baffin's Bay by way of Jones 
Sound. After leaving the Bradley vessel 
at Etah Cook traveled . almost exclusively 
by sled and on foot. 

Peary left New York, July 6th, 1908, on 
the specially prepared steamer Roosevelt, 
going direct to Sydney, Nova Scotia, and 
from there to Etah, which was reached 
August 16th. From Etah his course was 
different from that selected by Cook. He 
made his Avay to Cape Columbia, on the 
northern coast of Grant's Land, consider- 
ably to the northeast of Nansen's Sound. 
From Cape Columbia the party worked its 
way northward to latitude 89.57, from 
which point the final dash to the Pole was 
made. Peary reports that the objective 
point was reached on April 6th, and that 



the party, consisting of Peary, Henson, the 
negro cook, and four Eskimos, remained 
there thirty hours. Observation showed 
the latitude to be 90. The temperature 
was 32 degrees below zero. 

Both parties suffered intensely, but there 
was only one fatality. Prof. Ross Marvin, 
of Cornell University, was lost in latitude 
86.34 by his sled sliding into an open 
"lead" or fissure in the ice. 

Leaving out the last expedition of Cook 
and Peary, eleven notable attempts have 
been made to reach the North Pole since 
1800, all of them ending in failure and 
intense suffering, and many of them in 
great loss of life. Arranged in chronolog- 
ical order these may be enumerated as 
follows : Beechey, 1818 ; Perry, 1819 ; Von 
Wrangell, 1820; Franklin, 1845; Kane, 
1853 ; DeLong, 1881 ; Greely, 1881-84 ; Nan- 
sen, 1888; Peary (accompanied by Dr. 
Cook), 1891, 1893, 1898, 1905, 1909; Andree 
(balloon), 1897; Cook 1891, 1907. 

While most of the polar expeditions have 
been made northward, numerous explora- 
tions, including those of Borchgrevink in 
1900 ; Capt. Ruser in 1901 ; Capt. Bruce in 
1903, and Capt. Shackleton, H. M. N., in 
1907, have been made in an effort to locate 
the South Pole. Of these the most suc- 
cessful was that of Shackleton, and yet he 
only reached latitude 88.23 south, but this 
was 340 miles further south than any of 
his predecessors. While Antarctic explora- 
tion has its share of danger and suffering, 
and the cold is fully as intense as that in 
the North, there has been no similar loss 
of life. This is all the more remarkable 
from the fact that there is absolutely no 
animal life in the extreme south, and ex- 
plorers can not get supplies of life-saving 
food as Arctic explorers do by shooting 
wolves, bears, and other animals. If Shack- 
leton reached latitude 88.23, as seems to 



320 



THINGS WE ALL SHOULD KNOW 



be well confirmed, 
he was within 100 
miles of the South 
Pole. That he was 
compelled to turn 
back before reaching 
the goal, was because 
of lack of food sup- 
plies. 

Two interesting 
facts have been dem- 
onstrated in connec- 
tion with North and 
South Pole explora- 
tion. Both Cook and 
Peary agree that the 
immediate vicinity of 




DR. COOK IN DENM.VRK AND IN AMERICA. 
At the left hand the explorer is shown as he appeared on landing at 
Copenhagen. On the right he is seen as he looked on landing in America. 



the North Pole is 
composed of a great field of rough ice in fan- 
tastic shapes, but whether this ice covers 
land or water is unknown. In the vicinity 
of the South Pole tliere are vast stretches 
of ice-covered ocean, with comparatiA'ely 
small areas of land. Both the North and 
South magnetic Poles have been reached, 
but the true geographical Poles for which 
explorers have searched for centuries, are 
as yet undiscovered so far as actual rec- 
ords show. 

'^ «? i« 

ELfiCTEIC ' ' SCARECROWS, ' ' 

For many years farmers have used fan- 
tastic lay figures of various kinds to frigh- 
ten away crows and other depredatory 
birds from their growing crops of grain, 
but none of them has been wholly satisfac- 
tory. An Austrian schoolmaster has lately 
patented an electric gong system which 
effectively scares away the birds. This con- 
sists of a clock, which at irregular intervals 
makes connection with electric gongs fixed 
in various positions in the orchards and 
grain fields. The noise made by the gongs 
serves as an effective "scare croAv" and 



frightens off whatever birds may have in- 
vaded the field. 




AN ELECTRIC "SCARECROW." 
ELECTRIC RAILWAYS. 

Although it is less than 25 years since 
the first Electric Railway was operated in 
Richmond, Va., there are 1,500 lines today. 
During the year 1910 these lines carried 
10,000,000 people. This only includes the 
lines running between cities and towns. 



THINGS WE ALL SHOULD KNOW 



321 



BEINGING THE DEAD TO LIFE. 

Dr. Louise G. Robinovitch, whose home 
is in Paris, but who passes part of her 
time in New York, is credited, by reliable 
authorities, with power to restore human 
life by means of electricity applied with 
apparatus of her own designing. She has 
interested the New York Edison Company 
in her experiments, and has given several 
demonstrations in the presence of the com- 
pany's experts. One case in particular is 
cited. 




ROBINOVITCH APPARATUS FOR RESUSCITATING THE DEAD, 

A woman far gone with the ravages of 
morphine eating, was admitted to Ste. Anne 
Asylum, Paris, where she was deprived of 
the drug. One day she died — at least the 
physicians pronounced her dead. All the 
ordinary means of resuscitation were em- 
ployed without avail. Twenty minutes after 
the physicians had abandoned their useless 
efforts Dr. Robinovitch 's apparatus was 
applied. Within thirty seconds the com- 
plexion of the "corpse" began to change, 



finally assuming a natural color. There was 
a quick, sharp sigh, and the woman's eyes 
opened. 

"Oh! I feel so cold in the back!" she 
cried, with a shiver. It was the wet pad 
of cotton in the electrodes at her back. 

A devout little nurse dropped a bottle of 
aromatic spirits she had been holding and 
crossed herself. "Back from the dead!" 
she exclaimed and the look in her eyes was 
half horror, half astonishment. Dr. Robin- 
ovitch had expected skepticism on the part 
of the male physicians. 
One, witnessing this 
"reawakening," asked: 
"I wonder have you 
brought the soul back 
too?" The woman, in 
her hour of triumph, 
merely smiled. 

Where actual death 
has set in to the extent 
of making chemical 
changes in the body, re- 
suscitation is impossible. 
The more advanced 
physicians, in view of 
the Robinovitch dem- 
onstrations, now main- 
tain that evidence of 
these chemical changes 
is the only real proof 
of death. In hundreds of cases Dr. Robin- 
ovitch has demonstrated to physicians 
that animals, such as rabbits, which 
had been shocked to death by elec- 
tricity, could be restored to life by an 
application of the same power. It is nov/ 
broadly claimed that in cases where crimi- 
nals are electrocuted by the means ordi- 
narily employed and life can be restored 
if the application is made quickly enough. 



322 



THINGS WE ALL SHOULD KNOW 



WAR ON FLIES AND MOSQUITOS. 

Medical science has developed the fact 
that the common house fly and the mos- 
quito are great purveyors of disease. The 
fly visits putrid masses, the germs of ty- 
phus and similar fevers attaching to its 
feet. It then invades the home througli 
open windows and doors and leaves some 
of these disease germs wherever it alights, 
frequently on the food which is later taken 
into the human system, germs and all. 
The mosquito performs its deadly work 
in a different manner, but the results 
are even worse. "Where the fly merely 
deposits the germs of disease and trusts 
to chance for their being swallowed by 
human victims, the mosquito makes its 
work sure by inoculating its victims 
with the virus of disease, such as yel- 
low fever, for instance, by biting them. 
This has been decisively established 
through scientific experiments by experts, 
notable among Avhom is Dr. John B. 
Smith, state entomologist of New Jersey. 
Consequently, the command has gone out, 
"Swat the flies! Swat the mosquitos!" 
and it is being obeyed. Vigorous war is 
being made against both pests, but more 
has been accomplished in the suppression of 
the mosquito, than of the fly. This is main- 
ly because the breeding places and habits 
of the mosquito are better known, and more 
strenuous war has been made against the 
pest than in the case of the fly. But the 
war on the latter has been started, and has 
begun to show results. 

Mosquitos breed in stagnant water. 
Water is an absolute necessity to their ex- 
istence. If fish can be introduced into 
these stagnant pools the mosquito will soon 
disappear, as the fish feed greedily upon 
the young "wrigglers," which, if left alone, 
develop rapidly into poison-bearing "skeet- 
ers." Draining the stagnant pools "wall kill 
off the pests ; so will opening ditches which 



admit a current of water; burning the 
vegetation is another remedy, as is spray- 
ing the stagnant waters and banks with 
solutions of permanganate of potash, or 
kerosene oil. All of these means of ex- 
termination are being used with good effect, 
and the number of mosquitos is growing 
less year by year. Left alone the pest 
breeds with wonderful rapidity. In ono 
small pool at South Cape May, New Jersey, 




OFFENSIVE WEAPONS OF POISONOUS MOSQUITO. 

Dr. Smith took out 10,636,704 "wrigglers," 
an average of 5,616 to the square foot. 

The extinction of the house fly is a more 
difficult proposition. It has no known, or 
favored, breeding places which may be sys- 
tematically attacked. It reproduces itself 
in countless swarms anywhere and every- 
where. Thus far the people have had to 
content themselves with a more general 
use of screens on windows and doors, and 
various fly-catching devices, such as sticky 
paper, fly traps, etc. 



REMEDY "NO. 606" AND ITS USE. 

If the expectations of the medical profes- 
sion are realized, "Remedy No. 606," intro- 
duced by Prof. Paul ErUch, of Germany, 
vnW be of inestimable value to the human 
race. It is known as "606" merely because 
that is the official number of the experiment 
as conducted by Prof. Erlieh at the Royal 
Institute for Experimental Therapeutics at 
Frankfort-on-the-Main. Physicians desig- 



THINGS WE ALL SHOULD KNOW 



323 



nate tlie preparation as salvarsan. Its 
office is to overcome, or cure — tliis latter 
word is tabooed by ethical physicians — the 
ravages of blood diseases of syphilitic 
origin. Until the introduction of "606" 
there was no course of treatment known to 
the medical profession by which the desired 
results could be obtained in all instances. 
Even now there are some prominent physi- 
cians who deprecate the universal use of 
"606," but the more advanced of practi- 
tioners, having confidence in Prof. Erlich's 
skill, and with the lesson of the wonderful 
results obtained at Frankfort before them, 
accept the verdict as to its efficacy without 
question. 

Salvarsan, or "606," is a yellow, sulphur- 
colored powder, the chemical formula of 
which is C12H12O2N2AS2. This powder 
is mixed with a normal solution of so- 
dium hydroxide, a thick alkaline fluid 
resulting. This fluid is in turn treated 
with acetic acid to remove the excess of 
alkalinity. A light yellow-colored sedi- 
ment is precipitated, the supernatant fluid 
being the celebrated "606." This is in- 
jected in average doses of 0.5 gm. The 
remedy has been used with gratifying re- 
sults in many of the leading hospitals of 
Europe, under the supervision of eminent 
physicians, including such famous men as 
Citron and Wechselmann. 

It was Prof. Erlich who suggested and 
carried to success improvements in the 
preparation of diphtheric anti-toxin, with 
the result that only a fraction of an ounce 
is now required for treatment where for- 
merly it took from five to seven ounces. 

GEEAT INCREASE IN EMBEZZLEMENTS. 

The record of embezzlements, forgeries, 
and bank wrecking for the past year shows 
a material increase over 1909, being in 
round numbers about $25,000,000, as com- 



pared with $8,000,000 in 1909 and $13,000,- 
000 in 1908. These losses, as reported by 
telegraph, were distributed as follows: 

Banks $15,000,000 

Public officers 2,000,000 

Forgeries 2,500,000 

Agents 1,000,000 

Loan associations 2,000,000 

Miscellaneous 2,500,000 

The figures given will approximate the 
total losses. Many embezzlements are in- 
correctly reported. Some cases are settled 
in full, there being no criminal intent; and 
in many cases alleged embezzlers are de- 
clared guiltless by the courts. 

GENEROUS GIFTS BY AMERICANS. 

Extraordinary liberality was shown by 
Americans in their monetary gifts to reli- 
gious, charitable, educational, and similar 
purposes in 1910. The total amount of these 
gifts was $141,601,538. Of this amount 
$97,492,407 represented gifts and $44,112,- 
131 bequests. These sums have been dis- 
tributed as follows : To charities of various 
kinds, $56,229,243; to educational institu- 
tions, $61,283,182; to religious institutions, 
$12,654,433; to art museums, galleries, and 
public improvements, $9,536,680. A signifi- 
cant feature of this report is the rapidly de- 
creasing amount given to libraries ($1,911,- 
000), which a few years ago occupied a 
conspicuous place in these records. During 
the year women gave $8,743,722 to chari- 
ties, $6,433,250 to schools and colleges, $3,- 
025,500 to museums and galleries, $2,432,- 
270 to religious institutions, and $148,000 to 
libraries. The largest individual contribu- 
tor was Andrew Carnegie, with a total for 
the year of $19,664,325, making a grand 
total to date of $179,500,000. John D. 
Rockefeller stands next with 1910 gifts of 
$16,039,000, grand total to date of $135, 
000,000. 



324 



THINGS WE ALL SHOULD KNOW 



OUTDOOR CURE FOR CONSUMPTION. 

In Chicago, and elsewhere in the United 
States, organized effort is being made to 
combat pulmonary tuberculosis (the white 
plague) and anaemic conditions generally 
in children by the means of outdoor 
schools. The results have been so encourag- 
ing that it has received the endorsement of 
prominent physicians and is to be greatly 
extended. A few months in the open-air 
school transforms weak, puny children with 
tubercular tendencies, into robust young- 
sters. These schools, as a rule, are located 
on the roofs of handy buildings, or on 
specially constructed open porches or bal- 
conies. While book lessons are taught there 
are frequent intermissions devoted to danc- 
ing and other forms of calisthenics. No 
matter how cold the weather may be the 
school routine is not interrupted, the chil- 
dren retaining their hats and wraps while 
at study, and the frequent exercises tend- 
ing to keep the blood in circulation and 
warm the body. One of these schools, un- 
der roof, but with the windows removed so 
the fresh air may circulate freely, is con- 
ducted by the Chicago Board of Education 
in connection with the Graham public 
school in that city. The results in the im- 
provement of the physical health, and men- 
tal calibre of the pupils are said to be mar- 
velous. 

Sleeping outdoors, preferably on a roofed 
balcony, so as to be protected from rain, has 
also been found to be of wonderful benefit 
in eases of pulmonary tuberculosis. The 
fresh air seems to arrest the progress of the 
ailment, and replaces the diseased lung tis- 
sue with a healthy groAvth. Those who 
have tried this simple remedy speak strong- 
ly in praise of it, and their improved looks 
verify their assertions. It is admitted even 
by the most ardent advocates of the treat- 
ment, that to be of benefit it must be re- 
sorted to in the early stages of the disease, 



or at least before it has advanced to the in- 
curable stage. 

«? 'M il- 

FATALITIES TO HUNTERS. 
During the year ending Dec. 31, 1910, 
there were 219 people killed and 232 in- 
jured while on hunting expeditions in vari- 
ous parts of the United States. The largest 
number of deaths (42) was in Wisconsin. 
Maine comes next with 33, Pennsylvania 
with 31, and Llichigan fourth, with 26. 
Montana, Missouri, Nebraska, New Jersey, 
Oregon, Rhode Island and West Virginia 
are the only states in which no fatalities 
occurred. 

^ ^ ^ 

EPIDEMICS AND WAR LOSSES. 

The loss of life by epidemics in Europe 
shows a large increase over the last two 
years, being approximately 150,000, as com- 
pared with 5,000 in 1909 and 50,000 in 1908. 
The two principal sufferers were Russia and 
Italy, which together lost about 102,000 vic- 
tims by cholera. 

The wars of 1910 were mostly short lived 
and not destructive. One thousand five 
hundred and fifty were killed in Africa, 20 
in Corea, 1,060 in China, 45 in India, 550 in 
Syria, 1,800 in Arabia, 2,103 in Albania, 
113 in Morocco, 300 in Portugal, 11 in Per- 
sia, and 200 in Tripoli. The battle losses in 
Mexico, Central and South America, as the 
outcome of revolutions, were as follows: 
Mexico, 2,653 ; Nicaragua, 2,406 ; Honduras, 
116; Brazil, 400, Uruguay, 500. The total 
for the year was about 13,000, as compared 
with 68,000 in 1909 and 22,000 in 1908. 



HAGUE PEACE CONFERENCE, 

Two sessions of The Hague Peace Con- 
ference have been held — the last in 1906 — 
with the purpose of securing universal 



326 



THINGS WE ALL SHOULD KNOW 



peace among the nations of the world, but 
little of practical value has been attained. 
In this body every civilized country in the 
world is represented. The delegates from 
the United States at the last session were : 

Hon Seth Low, Hon. Standford Newell, 
Hon. Andrew D. White, Frederick W. 
Hulls, Capt. Alfred T. Mahan, U. S. N., 
and Capt. William Crozier, U. S. A. 

The idea, which originated with the 
Czar of Russia so far back as 1899, was to 
stamp out the possibility of war by de- 
creasing, or at least not increasing, mili- 
tary and naval armament, and its attend- 
ant burdens of taxation, but thus far no 
real progress has been made. It was de- 
sired to substitute a system of international 
arbitration for the settlement of quarrels 
between nations, and thus eliminate en- 
tirely, or greatly reduce, the possibility of 
actual hostilities. Despite the two confer- 
ences the various nations, especially the 
more powerful ones, have gone on increas- 
ing their war forces, and the desired end 
seems as far from attainment as ever. As 
an illustration of what might be accom- 
plished in this direction, the case of the 
Treaty of Ghent between the United States 
and Great Britain, was cited. Under this 
compact the border line between the 
United States and Canada is unfortified by 
either country, and no war vessels are 
maintained on the great lakes. 

In its inception Andrew Carnegie was 
an ardent and liberal supporter of The 
Hague Peace Conference policy, and con- 
tributed generously in money to secure the 
desired results. That he has begun to 
lose confidence in the ability of the con- 
ference to bring about universal peace is 
evidenced by the fact that, on December 
13th, 1910, Mr. Carnegie started another 
universal peace movement, contributing 
$11,500,000 to the cause. The interest of 



this fund, amounting to $575,000 a year, 
he placed at the disposal of a board of 
twenty-one trustees of his own selection, 
"to be used in any manner they may deem 
best, so long as it will tend to lessen the 
chances of war among the nations." 

Vi ^ ^ 
THE WORLD'S GREAT DISASTERS. 

The first ten years of the Twentieth Cen- 
tury were marked by an unusual number 
of appalling catastrophes. First came the 
volcanic eruption of Mt. Pelee in 1902, by 
which 30,000 lives were lost, and the 
entire city of St. Pierre, Martinique, 
wiped out of existence. Then came the hor- 
rible Iroquois theater fire in Chicago, in 
which nearly 700 people were killed. Next 
came the San Francisco earthquake disaster 
in 1906, and then the Italian seismic horror 
of 1908, which has been described as the 
most appalling and terrible in the annals of 
history. 



ERUPTION OF MT. PELEE. 

On May 8, 1902, the city of St. Pierre, 
metropolis of the French island of Marti- 
nique, in the Caribbean sea, southeast of 
Porto Rico, was wiped out of existence by 
an eruption of Mt. Pelee, a volcano, which 
was supposed to be extinct. For several 
days the volcano had given signs of im- 
rest, but nothing serious was anticipated, 
until a short time before the actual out- 
break, and it was then too late for the bulk 
of the people to escape. It was just before 
eight o'clock on the morning of Thursday, 
May 8, that the lava and gases of the crater 
of Mt. Pelee burst their bounds and bore 
destruction to the fated city. Within thirty 
seconds 30,000 persons were killed, and the 
streets of St. Pierre were heaped with dead 
bodies. Within ten minutes the city itself 



THINGS WE ALL SHOULD KNOW 



327 



had disappeared iu a whirling flame vom- 
ited from the mountain. The volcano, 
whose ancient crater for more than fifty 
years had been occupied by a quiet lake in 
which picnic parties had bathed, discharged 
a torrent of fiery mud, which rolled toward 




if 



the sea, engulfing everything before it. The 
city was no more. 

St. Pierre was destroyed by one all-con- 
suming blast of suffocating, poisonous, 
burning gases. Death came to the inhabi- 
tants instantly. It is not merely true that 
no person inside the limits of the town es- 
caped, but it is probably a literal fact that 
no person lived long enough to take two 
steps toward escape. The manner of the 
annihilation of St. Pierre is unique in the 
history of the world. Pompeii was not a 
parallel, for Pompeii was eaten up by 
demoniac rivers of lava, and lava became 
its tomb. But where St. Pierre once stood 
there was not even a lava bed. The city 
had gone from the earth. 

SAN FRANCISCO EARTHQUAKE. 

About 5 'clock, on the morning of April 
18, 1906, the people of San Francisco were 
awakened by a terrific earthquake shock 
which destroyed many buildings. Follow- 
ing this fire broke out which raged for three 




DEATH AND RUIN EVERYWHERE. 



328 



THINGS WE ALL SHOULD KNOW 



days, destroying a large part of the city, 
and making nearly 40,000 people homeless. 
Many lives Avere lost. The exact number 
will never be known, as in the excitement 
many bodies were buried without formal 
permit or ivcord. Over 500 bodies Avere 




taken from the ruins by the firemen, police 
and soldiers. The money loss has been 
placed at $200,000,000. The earthquake 
shock destroyed the water mains, and de- 
prived of an adequate supply of water, the 
firemen could make no headway against the 
flames. Water, even for drinking purposes, 
Avas hard to get. The fire did not stop until 
it had burned itself out, although many 
buildings were dynamited in the hope of 
checking the flames. The work of rebuild- 
ing the city began almost before the ruins 
had cooled off, and the San Francisco of 
today is a handsome, solidly constructed, 
modern city. 

THE ITALIAN EARTHQUAKE. 
Early on the morning of Monday, De- 
cember 28th, 1908, the southern part of 
Italy, and the eastern part of Sicily, was 
visited by a terrific earthquake, lasting 23 
seconds, which completely annihilated 
everything within its zone. FolloAving im- 
mediately after the great shocks came an 



j^M 




mm 



SKA FRONT OF MESSINA, SHOWING "WRECKAGE. 



THINGS WE ALL SHOULD KNOW 



329 



enormous tidal wave that hurled itself 
with resistless fury against the already 
stricken city of i\Iessina completing the 
work of destruction in the lower part of the 
town. Almost immediately afterwards fires 
broke out in many places and turned the 
vast sepulchre into an actual inferno. The 
suddenness of the shock was responsible for 
the huge death roll. Thousands were killed 
in their beds before they could realize Avhat 
was happening. Others were killed by fall- 
ing debris or shattered under masonry that 
toppled into the streets as the earth con- 
tinued its quivers and even long after all 
pulsations had ceased. It required an army 
of 25,000 men to rescue the living entrapped 
in the ruins, and to bury the dead. It is 
estimated that 100,000 people were killed in 
less than half a minute in Messina and the 
immediate vicinity. 

At Reggio, on the mainland of Italy, just 
across the straits from Messina, only 5,000 



out of a population of 50,000 escaped. Ba- 
gnai*a, Cannitello and other towns suffered 
in proportion. Relief was rushed to the 
stricken region as promptly as possible, the 
entire civilized world responding to the cry 
for help with generous contributions of 
food, clothing and money. But, promptly 
as this relief was furnished, there was a 
lamentable amount of suffering from hun- 
ger and exposure. For weeks searching 
parties dug amid the ruins, and made many 
remarkable rescues. In one instance two 
girls and a boy who had been entombed in 
the ruins for eighteen days, were taken out 
alive. More than $10,000,000 was raised 
for the relief of the sufferers, of which the 
people of the United States contributed 
$3,600,000. The total loss of life has never 
been officially reported, but conservative 
estimates place it at between 250,000 and 
300,000. 



FINANCIAL DEVELOPMENT OF UNITED STATES IN 1910 

1909. 1910. % Inc. 

fAll bank elearinsrs $104,105,488,940 $162,000,000,000 *1.3 

Value of all farm products 8,760,000,000 8,926,000,000 1.9 

Railroads earnings, gross 2,608,176,609 2,835,374,081 8.7 

Deposits in all banlvs 14,035,000,000 15,283,400,000 8.1 

Capital stock of banks 1,800,000,000 1,879,000,000 4.4 

Circulation, national banks 703,940,000 724,874,308 2.9 

Net earnings, national banks 131,185,750 154,167,000 17.6 

Dividend disbursements 611,000,000 695,000,000 13.7 

Value bonds sold, ^iew York 1,317,291,000 630,000,000 *52.2 

Value of Imports 1,475,000,00 1,550,000,000 5.1 

Value of exports 1,730,000,000 1,843,000,000 9.0 

Building expenditures 857,5.")0,669 809,000,000 *5.7 

Fire losses 203,649,150 229,942,650 12.9 

Business failures 151,752,098 +199,007,292 31.5 

Cereal crops, bushels 4,719,441,000 5,160,426,000 9.3 

Hay crop, tons 64,938,000 60,978,000 'O.l 

Cotton crop, bales 10,363,240 12,000,000 15.8 

Wool clip, pounds 307,348,000 295,672,000 •3.8 

Coal mined, tons 437,176,241 500,000,000 14.4 

flron ore shipments, tons 42,586,869 43,629,201 2.4 

Pig iron production, tons 25,337,003 26,665,341 5.2 

Sault Ste. Marie commerce, tons 57,895,149 62,363,218 7.7 

Portland cement production, barrels 62,508,461 70,000,000 12.0 

Sugar production, tons 1,556,000 1,565,000 0.6 

Total mileage railroads 234,950 239,070 1.7 

New railroads built, miles 3,748 4,120 9.1 

Immigration 1,334,166 1,078,000 'lO.a 

♦Decrease. tDun's report. 



CIVIL SERVICE AND ITS LAWS 



Properly speaking, civil service means 
t;he service of all persons in the employ of 
government, national, state or municipal, 
except those in the army and navy. Civil 
service, therefore, existed from the time of 
the foundation of the government. But 
civil service reform, growing out of the 
abuses that were saddled upon public of- 
fice, is of comparatively recent growth in 
this country. The general practice in the 
national government was that with every 
change of presidents from one party to an- 
other, there should be a clean sweep of all 
employes under the government, irrespect- 
tive of merit, age or period of service, with 
the broad rule applied, "to" the victors be- 
long the spoils." 

Finally it began to be recognized that 
there should be no "spoils," that "public 
office is a public trust," that faithful and 
competent service should assure per- 
manence, and that the whole system in ef- 
fect was unnatural and unwise, as well as 
highly improper. Earnest men, true patri- 
ots, began to plan for improvement, and 
now the country sees less and less of the 
unseemly scrambles for official place and 
plunder that used to be the chief evil of 
changing administrations. 

The act of January 16, 1883, popularly 
known as the civil service act, is entitled 

330 



"An act to regulate and improve the civil 
service of the United States." Its purpose, 
as its title indicates, was to correct certain 
conspicuous abuses which were then prev- 
alent in connection with the appointment 
and promotion of civilian employees in the 
executive branch of the government, and at 
the same time to improve that part of the 
public service by increasing the efficiency 
of the employes, and thus securing a more 
satisfactory and economical administration 
of puWic affairs. In the departments at 
Washington the classification embraced all 
persons receiving salaries of not less than 
$900 nor more than $1,800 a year — alto- 
gether 5,652 — of whom 135 were excepted 
from examination. The classification of the 
Customs Service embraced places having an 
annual compensation of $900 or over, at 
ports where 50 or more persons were em- 
ployed, excluding only those whose nomi- 
nations had to be confirmed by the Senate. 
The number of places thus classified, in- 
cluding eleven ports, was 2.5Y3. The num- 
ber of postoffices classified — being those at 
which there were 50 or more employes — 
was 23, and the classified service at these 
offices included all persons above the grade 
of workman or laborer except the postmas- 
ters, or 5,699 in all. In the three branches 
of the classified service, thereiore, the total 



Things XOe All Should Knotet 



331 



number of places made subject to tbe pro- 
visions of tbe civil-service rules was 13,924. 
By March 3, 1885, President Arthur, under 
whom this act became a law, bad extended 
its operations to include 15,573 places. By 
March 3, 1889, President Cleveland caused 
it to include 27,330 classified places. By 
March 3, 1893, President Harrison had 
'extended it to 42,928 places. At this time 
Secretary Tracy, with the approval of the 
President, put the Navy Yard Service un- 
der the merit system, thus classifying about 
5,000 employes. By March 3, 1897, Presi- 
dent Cleveland caused the act to cover 81,- 
889 classified places. By June 30, 1901, 
President McKinley had added 2,233 places 
to the civil-service list, and under his ad- 
ministration, imder various rulings, there 
were 19,423 places dropped from the merit 
system and restored to the list of purely 
appointive offices. 

President Roosevelt caused nearly all of 
the more important places to be restored, 
and extended as rapidly as possible the 
merit system over the newly acquired de- 
pendencies and colonies. 

EXTENT OF THE SERVICE. 

It is estimated that the number of posi- 
tions in the Executive Civil Service is now 
about 210,000, of which approximately 90,- 
000 are classified competitive positions, 
100,000 unclassified, and somewhat less 
than 20,000 are classified but not subject 
to competitive examination. Less than 20,- 
000 of the official force are employed in 
Washington, D. C. Most of the unclassi- 
fied positions are held by fourth-class post- 
masters, of whom there are more than 72,- 
000. 

Under the act of April 12, 1900, the 
United States Civil Service supplanted the 



military service in Porto Rico. Inasmuch 
as the executive officers and employes under 
this act become a part of the Executive 
Civil Service of the United States, they are 
properly subject to the provisions of the 
Civil Service acts and rules. On July 5, 
1900, the Secretary of the Treasury, with 
the President's approval, issued an order 
classifying and including within the pro- 
visions of the Civil Service law and rules 
the officers and employes in and under the 
Treasury Department of Porto Rico, ex- 
cepting persons appointed with the advice 
and consent of the Senate and persons em- 
ployed as mere laborers or workmen. On 
August 29, 1900, the Postmaster-General 
informed the Commission that the United 
States Postoftice Department, on May 1, 
1900, assumed control of the free-delivery 
service at Mayaguez and San Juan, Porto 
Rico. The Commission approved the lists 
of carriers transmitted therewith and au- 
thorized the treatment of the offices as free- 
delivery offices. 

On July 5, 1900, the Secretary of the 
Treasury issued an order classifying the 
employes of the Treasury Department in 
Hawaii. The order is similar in scope and 
language to that of the same date relating 
to Porto Rico. 

On September 19, 1900, the United 
States Philippine Commission passed an 
act entitled ''An act for the establishment 
and maintenance of an efficient and honest 
civil service in the Philippine Islands." In 
introducing the measure President Taft 
said: 

"The purpose of the United States Gov- 
ernment and the people of the United 
States in these islands is to secure for the 
Filipino people as honest and as efficient a 
government as may be possible. It is 



332 



Things XO€ All 



deemed by the Cammission and by tbe Gov- 
ernment which, the Commission represents 
to have every feature of this bill consistent 
with the Government. The danger in any 
government, whether it be republican or 
monarchial, is that public office be used for 
private purposes. All countries have suf- 
fered from this evil, and those countries 
in which a thorough system of civil service 
is selected are the first to minimize that 
danger." 

HOW TO ENTER THE CIVIL SERVICE. 

Persons seeking to be examined must 
file an application blank. The blank for 
the Departmental Service at Washington, 
Eailway Mail Service, the Indian School 
Service, and the Government Printing Ser- 
vice should be requested directly of the 
Civil Service Commission at Washington. 
The blank for the Customs, Postal, or In- 
ternal Eevenue Service must be requested 
in writing of the Civil Service Board of 
Examiners at the office where service is 
sought. These papers should be returned 
to the officers from whom they emanated. 

Applicants for examination must be 
citizens of the United States, and of the 
proper age. No .person using intoxicating 
liquors to excess may be appointed. 

A set of specimen examination questions 
covering all the departments has been pre- 
pared by the Commission, with full infor- 
mation as to examinations. This is pub- 
lished in a pamphlet under the title, "Man- 
ual of Examinations," and may be obtained 
free of charge by writing to the United 
States Civil Service Commission, Washing- 
ton, D. C. It can also be obtained from 
any postoffice where there is a civil service 
department. 

The age limitations for entrance to posi- 



Should K.nobv , 

tions in the different branches of the serv- 
ice are as follows : 

Mini- Maxi- 
mum, mum. 
Departmental service: 
Page, messenger boy, • apprentice, (other 

than apprentice in mints and assay 

offices) or student 14 20 

Apprentice in mints and assay offices.. 18 24 

Printer's assistant and messenger 18 No limit. 

Positions in the Railway-Mail Service. 18 35 

Internes and hospital stewards in the 

Marine Hospital Service and acting 

second assistant engineer in the Rev- 
enue-Cutter Service 21 30 

Keeper, assistant keeper and officers of 

light-house tenders and light vessels 

in the Light-House Service 18 5l) 

Cadet in the Revenue-Cutter Service 

and aid in the Coast and Geodetic 

Survey 18 25 

Surfmau in the Lite-Saving Service 18 45 

Superintendent, physician, supervisor, 

day-school inspector, disciplinarian, 

matron, and assistant matron in the 

Indian Service; inspector and assis- 
tant inspector of hulls and inspector 

and assistant inspector of boilers in 

the Steamboat-Inspection Service 25 55 

Observer in the Weather Bureau Service 18 30 

All other positions 20 No limit. 

(The age limitation shall not apply in 

the case of the wife of the superinten- 
dent of an Indian school who applies 

for examination for the position of 

teacher or matron.) 

Custom-House Service: All positions 20 No limit. 

Post-Office Service: 

Rural letter carrier 17 55 

All other positions 18 45 

(The age limitations shall not apply in 

the case of an honorably discharged 

United States soldier or sailor of the 

civil war or of the Spanish-American 

war who applies for the position of 

rural letter carrier.) 
Government Printing Service: 

All positions (male) 21 No limit. 

All positions (female) 18 No limit. 

Internal-Revenue Service: All positions. 21 No limit. 

The inestimable value of the merit sys- 
tem to good government is now so univer- 
sally admitted, and so unassailable from 
both moral and economic standpoints, that 
it is being extended throughout the entire 
field of public service. 

Civil Service on the merit system in the 
cities is making notable progress, as in Chi- 
cago, ISTew York and Boston, while in other 
cities it is still struggling against the spoils 
system of the professional politicians. 

The merit system of the Civil Service h 
likewise making notable progress among 
the States, as in !N"ew York and Massa- 
chusetts, where a practical economic sja- 
tem is now in effective operation. 

Likewise many counties of the various 



Things tOe Alt Should K.notv 



333 



States have adopted civil service rules in 
which there shall be "no dismissal except 
for cause, no promotion except for merit." 
In this way the office spoilsmen among pro- 
fessional politicians can not cause the dis- 
missal even of a janitor without due trial 
and conviction of a misdemeanor. 

COMPULSORY EDUCATION 

Most of the States of the Union, and the 
District of Columbia, have compulsory edu- 
cation laws under various conditions, many 
of them made partly ineffective by excep- 
tions. 

In Ohio the law is inoperative where the 
seating accommodations of the school 
houses are insufficient. 

In Massachusetts, the four Cape Cod 
counties and the mountain counties of the 
west are exempt. 

In the various States, required attend- 
ance varies as to age from 7 years to 16 
years. The prevailing limits are 8 to 14 
years, and as to time, from eight weeks in 
Kentucky to the entire term taught in Mas- 
sachusetts and Connecticut. 

Where the penalty is on the parent, it 
varies in fines from $1 in New Mexico to 
$200 for repeated neglect in Nevada. 

The penalty is in numerous places on 
the child. In Maine if the child is between 
10 and 15 years of age and guilty of re- 
peated truancy, it is sent to the reform 
school; in jSTew Hampshire to industrial 
school; in Massachusetts, between 7 and 
16, to truant school; in Ehode Island to 
any designated institution; in New York 
to truant school ; in New Jersey to juvenile 
reformatory, if over 9 years of age; in 
Pennsylvania to local truant school; in 



Ohio to a reformatory; in Indiana to a 
parental home provided by the school 
board; in Michigan to an ungraded school 
provided by the board. 

Penalties varying from $10 to $100 for 
non-enforcement of the law are set upon 
officers in the states of Maine, Vermont, 
Pennsylvania, West Virgina, Kentucky, 
Ohio, Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Da- 
kota, South Dakota, Kansas, Montana and 
California. 

In most of the states Avhere there are 
state institutions for the deaf, dumb and 
blind, there is compulsory attendance at 
the parents' expense if they are able. 

Exemptions from compulsory attend- 
ance are granted for distance from nearest 
school as follows : California, one mile ; 
Pennsylvania, Kentucky, West Virginia, 
Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, 
Kansas, Colorado, Nevada and Oregon, 
two miles ; North Dakota, Montana, Utah, 
two and one-half miles; Idaho, three 
miles. 

A physician's certificate for bodily or 
mental ailments will exempt children in 
Indiana, North Dakota, Montana, Wyo- 
ming, New Mexico and Utah. In Wash- 
ington defective children must he sent to 
state institutions. Poverty is an exemp- 
tion in the District of Columbia, Nebraska, 
Ehode Island, Kentucky, Minnesota, Kan- 
sas, Montana and California. 

The need of the child's service for sup- 
port of parents exempts it from attendance 
in Utah, and, for any relative, in Illinois. 

Any urgent reason exempts from the 
law in Pennsylvania and Wyoming. 

In Wisconsin and Illinois it is necessary 
to obtain a decision from a court of record. 

In Ohio, the decision of a probate judge 
on appeal will exempt. 



334 



Things ti^e Alt Should Knoto 



Bv enactment of the legislatures, in case 
of poverty, clothing and books are fur- 
nished free in Vermont, by the town; in 
Indiana by the county; and in Colorado 
by the district. Elsewhere certain local 
provisions are made for the same purpose. 

The following states have made legal 
provisions for transporting children to 
school at public expense: Maine, New 
Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Con- 
necticut, ISTew York, ISTew Jersey, Iowa, 
ISTorth Dakota and ISTebraska, while partial 
provisions are made in Ehode Island, Wis- 
consin, Ohio, Pennsylvania and South 
Dakota. 

CHILD-LABOK LAWS. 

In E"ew Hampshire, no child under 10 
years of age may be employed in a man- 
ufacturing establishment, nor one under 
16, who cannot read and write, during 
time schools are in session, under a penalty 
on the employer not to exceed $30. 

In Vermont no child under 14 years is 
to be employed in any mill or factory un- 
less he has a certificate of school attendance 
of 14 weeks in the year. 

In Massachusetts no child under 14 
years of age can be employed during the 
school term, nor for any work earlier than 
6 A. M. or later than Y P. M. ISo one 
under 16 can be employed during school 
term without a certificate of attendance 
for the required time, nor any minor over 
14 who cannot read and write, during the 
time when there is a local evening school, 
unless he shall be attending the same. The 
penalties on employers are from $5 to $50. 

In Rhode Island no child under 12 
years can be employed during the scIlooI 
year without a certificate of having at- 
tended school eighty days. Fines not to 
exceed $20. 



In Connecticut no child under 14 can 
be employed who has not a certificate of 
sixty days' attendance at school. Penalty 
not to exceed $60. 

In ISTew York no child under 12 can be 
employed during school term, nor for the 
next two years without a certificate of 
eighty days' attendance. Penalty $50. 

In E'ew Jersey no child under 15 years 
can be employed without a school certifi- 
cate for twelve weeks of consecutive at- 
tendance. Penalty $10 to $25 or im- 
prisonment one to three months. 

In Ohio no child under 14 years can be 
employed without a certificate of sixteen 
weeks' attendance. Penalty $25 to $50. 

In Illinois no child shall be employed 
Avhich is under 13 years, for any period of 
time greater than one day, without a certifi- 
cate from the school board that the child's 
service is necessary to support an infirm 
relative. Penalty, every day being an 
offense, $10 to $50. 

In Michigan every child under 14 years 
must have attended school four months 
immediately previous to employment. 
Penalty $5 to $10 for first offense and not 
less than $10 for each subsequent offense. 

In ISTorth Dakota and South Dakota no 
child under 14 can be employed, except 
by parents or guardians, while the local 
public schools are in session, without cer- 
tificate of twelve weeks' attendance. Pen- 
alty $20 to $50 and costs in l^orth Da- 
kota, and $10 to $20 in South Dakota. 

STANDARD TIME OVER THE 
WORLD 

When transportation was slow and of 
small amount, the question of differences 
in time was of §mall account, but with the 



Things XOe All Should Knotv 



335 



advent of swift movements along parallels 
of latitude, in the vast volume of traffic of 
recent years, the problem became one of 
intolerable perplexity and danger. 

Scientific discussion had been going on 
for years with many suggestions and plans 
for relief, when in 1884, a conference was 
held in Washington which divided the 
world into zones or time belts with the 
meridian of Greenwich, five miles south- 
cast of Lon- 
don, as a 
basis. The 
observatory 
at Greenwich, 
which is al- 
most univer- 
sally the cal- 
culating point 
for the geo- 
graphical 
measurements 
of longitude, 
was erected 
by Charles II. 
for the ad- 
vancement of 
naviga t i on 
and nautical 
astronomy. It 
now trans- 
mits the time 
by magnetic 

currents to all England ard is the chief 
nautical reckoning point for the rest of the 
world. 

Before the general establishment of what 
is known as standard time, each town on 
a given parallel had a dUferent time from 
that of its neighbor, in accordance with the 
movement of the sun, but to the confusion 
of all railroad time. Tor the public con- 




CLOCK INDICATING SIMULTANEOUS TIME AROUND THE WORLD. 



venience, the United States was divided 
into four sections or belts of 15 degrees, 
or one hour each, to be known as Eastern, 
Central, Mountain and Pacific time. 
To accommodate the general divisions of 
the railroads, the dividing lines are drawn 
irregularly from north to south through 
railroad terminals or principal towns. On 
that account. Eastern time includes all the 
territory between the Atlantic coast and a 
line drawn 
from Detroit 
to Charleston, 
South Caro- 
lina, Central 
time includes 
all west to the 
irregular line 
drawn from 
B i s m a rck, 
North Dako- 
t a , to the 
mouth of the 
Eio Grande. 
Mountain 
time extends 
to the western 
borders of 
Idaho, Utah 
and Arizona, 
while the re- 
mainder west 
is Pacific 
time. Thus twelve noon in Eastern time is 
eleven a. m. in Central, ten a. m. in Moun- 
tain and nine a. m. in Pacific time. This 
is easily understood from the fact that it 
requires an hour for the sun to pass over 
a little more than a thousand miles, there- 
fore the sun rises upon or is perpendicular 
over, the eastern end of a thousand miles 
one hour before it is in the same position at 



536 



Things te^e Alt Should K.noto 



liie western end. Standard time for the 
United States is supplied by the ISTaval Ob- 
servatory at Washington. The exact hour of 
twelve o'clock noon is determined every day 
by astronomical observation, and the precise 
time is transmitted to the clocks of the gov- 
ernment departments by electricity. The 
telegraph companies are permitted to tele- 
graph the time thus taken by automatic 
instruments to all parts of the United 
States. The instrument at San Francisco 
registers the time within a fifth of a sec- 
ond after it is taken at Washington, D. C. 
To do this the telegraph company clears 
all its wires throughout the United States 
of all business, three minutes before noon 
each day, and thus unbroken connection is 
established over the entire telegraph sys- 
tem of the country. 

!N"ot alone is the exact time sent instantly 
to all parts of the Union, but the extensive 
system of private and business clocks con- 
nected with the telegraph lines are, by an 
electrical device, regulated together. This 
is done in each clock by means of an elec- 
tro-magnet operating a clamp. The mag- 
net is .filled with electric force when the 
circuit is closed to give the noon signal, and 
the hands of the clock are forced to the 
exact point of twelve. The telegraph com- 
pany charges $15 a year for each clock and 
fully $1,500,000 a year is earned by this 
service. More than ten thousand clocks 
are thus regulated in l^ew York City 
alone. 

From the staff of the Naval Observatory 
at Washington a great red ball drops ex- 
actly at noon every day, and those seeing it 
can regulate their watches and clocks ac- 
cordingly. In seaport towns balls are 
dropped in the same manner and the sea- 
men can thereby regulate their watches. 



PUBLIC LIBRARIES, THEIR 

GROWTH AND ADMIN- 

ISTRATION 

The administration of a great library, in 
order to make it most serviceable to those 
who patronize it, has become one of the 
learned professions of late years, so rapid 
has been the growth of the institutions and 
the uses to which they are put. Architects 
make special preparation to qualify them- 
selves for the building of libraries. Col- 
leges and universities give special courses 
for the instruction of librarians in the va- 
rious departments of their work. Philan- 
thropists have learned that there is no use 
to which they may put their benefactions 
for the public good surpassing the gift of 
funds for the establishment or the exten- 
sion of libraries, and the reading public, 
realizing the remarkable advantages to 
which it has access since libraries so multi- 
plied, gives closer attention to literature 
and keeps the attendants busy serving the 
wants of those who love books. 

In 1900 there were in the United States 
5,383 public, society and school libraries 
containing 1,000 or more volumes each. 
The total number in these collections was 
44,591,851, or 35 per cent more than in 
1896, when the number was 33,051,872. 
There is one library of more than 1,000 
volumes for every 14,118 persons, and 
there are fifty-nine books for every one hun- 
dred of the population. All of these fig- 
ures entirely exclude all private and small 
collections, which would increase the total 
enormously, for 1 here are multitudes of pri- 
vate libraries excieeding 1,000 volumes. 

There are f.ft}'-three national and state 
libraries, of which the Library of Congress, 
at Washington, is the largest, with more 



Things tae All Should Knoiuf 



337 



than 1,000,000 volumes. In addition 
to this library the House of Rep- 
resentatives, the Senate and the various de- 
partments of the government have their 



mm 




L 



LIBRARY BOOK STACK ROOM. 

special collections of books for immediate 
use, so that the total number of volumes be- 
longing to the govern- 
ment in Washington 
exceeds 2,000,000. 
The largest of the 
state libraries is that 
of New York, at Al- 
bany, with 423,290 
volumes. 

Of the thirty - six 
free public libraries of 
50,000 or more vol- 
umes, that of Boston 
is the largest, with 
772,432 books on its 
shelves. Thirty - two 
universities and col- 
leges have libraries of 
more than 50,000 vol- 
umes, and of these 
Harvard University 



stands at the head with 560,000 books. 
There are thirty-seven other libraries in the 
United States exceeding 50,000 volumes 
each, belonging to various societies and spe- 
cial collections and extending in several in- 
stances to more than 200,000 books. 

It is edifying to notice a single city as 
an example of the wealth of library mate- 
rial in the United States. In Chicago the 
free public library has a total of 272,276 
volumes and 49,805 unbound pamphlets. 
The aggregate circulation for a single year 
approaches 2,500,000 volumes, which does 
not include the use of books kept on open 
shelves, nor the periodicals and newspapers 
used in the reading rooms. The splendid 
public library building which shelters this 
collection was erected at a cost of several 
hundred thousand dollars, and is equipped 
with every modern appliance known to li- 
brary experts. Of course, it is fireproof 
throughout, being built entirely of steel, 




DYNAMOS AND VENTILATING PIPES, CHICAGO PUBLIC LIBRARY. 



338 



Things tOe All Should Knotv 



cement, glass and tiles. The book stacks or 
shelves are made of steel. The ventilation 
of the library is arranged according to a 
system which makes it unnecessary to open 
the windows and admit the dust and soot, 
which are so disastrous to books. All air 
for ventilation is admitted through the 
basement, where it is filtered and cleaned 
before being distributed throughout the 
building by an intricate system of large 
pipes and fans. 

In addition to this library, in Chicago 
there is the John Crerar library, with more 
than 75,000 volumes, the Newberry free li- 
brary with 250,000 volumes, the Chicago 
Historical Society library with 27,000 vol- 
umes and 60,000 pamphlets, the Chicago 
Law Institute library with 40,000 volumes, 
the University of Chicago library with 
335,000 volumes and 165,000 pamphlets, 
the Field Columbian Museum library and 
the library of the Armour Institute, each 
containing some 15,000 volumes. It is evi- 
dent that no one need be denied reading 
matter in such a city for want of opportu- 
nity, and the other great cities of the 
United States make a showing equally cred- 
itable. 

Andrew Carnegie, the great iron master, 
has paid special attention to public libra- 
ries in his immense contributions to char- 
itable and educational purposes. It is cal- 
culated that he has given nearly $15,000,- 
000 for libraries in the United States and 
Scotland within the last two or three years. 
To JSTew York city alone he gave $5,200,- 
000 to establish branch libraries. To St. 
Louis he gave $1,000,000 for a public li- 
brary, and to a total of nearly two hundred 
cities he has given public libraries ranging 
in cost from $15,000 to $750,000. In near- 
ly every instance his gifts have been 



coupled with the condition that a building 
site should be provided free of cost, and an 
appropriation for the annual maintenance 
of the library be made from public funds. • 
By this means he has stimulated the gift 
and the expenditure of large sums of money 
in addition to those which he gave himself, 
and consequently the totals of his own con- 
tributions do not by any means measure 
the full amount given for such purposes in 
this country. Indeed, there have been sev- 
eral other gifts of public libraries, ranging 
in value from $25,000 to $150,000, by men 
who avowed themselves to be moved by Mr. 
Carnegie's generosity elsewhere, so that to 
him must be given a large share in the 
credit for the remarkable stimulus that has 
been given to library building within re 
cent years. 

AMERICAN COLLEGES AND 
THEIR GROWTH 

It is a characteristic of this age of prog- 
ress that attention is being paid to the in- 
tellectual side of life just as energetically 
as to industrial and commercial undertak- 
ings. Indeed, in many commimities the 
development of the refinements of life is 
advancing with even greater rapidity. In 
the comparatively new cities of the Mis- 
sissippi Valley and the Far West the men 
of energy and ability, until recently, have 
been forced to devote all their time and at- 
tention to the upbuilding of their own pros- 
perity and that of the communities in which 
they live. They have had little leisure to 
think of anything except business. Of late 
years, however, with their fortunes estab- 
lished and business conditions fixed in more 
regular channels, they have had more lib- 



Things tOe All Should Knobu 



339 



erty of action for intellectual pursuits and 
recreation. The result is that our great 
merchants, miners, railway men, manufac- 
turers and other captains of industry have 
turned into these finer pursuits the same 
energy and executive ability that have built 
great cities in a generation. The libraries, 
universities, museums, art galleries and 
other kindred institutions have grown like 
magic, with enormous rapidity, as a result 
of the immense gifts made for such pur- 
poses. While it is true that money cannot 
provide the venerable history and the schol- 



record of 100 years behind them, and it is 
not stranp-e that with such conditions they 
likewise excel in the number of students 
attracted to them. With unlimited money 
at their command they are able to employ 
faculties of the most distinguished scholar- 
ship. They offer likewise college libraries, 
gymnasiums, museums, laboratories and 
buildings themselves of the greatest, and 
many a young man passes by the school 
with the traditions in order to patronize one 
which has the newest dormitories. 

The statistics of American colleges are 




BUILDINGS OP COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, NEW YORK CITY. 



astic atmosphere that belong to the older in- 
stitutions as qualities that come only with 
age, or the traditions that stimulate those 
who inherit the halls from which a century 
of distinguished men have issued, yet ma- 
terial equipment goes far to assist scholar- 
ship, and age will be provided by the pass- 
ing years. 

Some of the younger colleges, for in- 
stance, with a history dating back hardly 
ten years, already excel in their endow- 
ments and the facilities they offer to stu- 
dents, those institutions with an honorable 



impressive as indicating the attention that 
young men and young women are giving to 
higher learning, and the assistance granted 
to such institutions either by the public in 
the state universities or by men of large 
wealth out of their private fortunes. In 
the United States there are enumerated 621 
colleges, universities and seminaries for 
higher education which are authorized to 
grant degrees. In these 12,557 professors 
and instructors are employed in teaching 
153,287 scholars. The income of these in- 
stitutions annually reaches the immense 



340 



Things tOe A.II Should Knofuf 



total of $24,185,367. At least eight of these 
institutions have more than 3,000 students 
attending. Harvard University stands at 
the head of the list, vpith 5,150 students; 
Columbia University second, with 4,036, 
and the University of Michigan at Ann 
Arbor third, vpith 3,800, the latter being 
the largest of all the state universities sup- 
ported by public funds. The University of 
Chicago, which, under its present organiza- 



activity in the affairs of every-day life. 
With the great increase in their financial 
resources they have entered the field of 
scientific exploration all over the world, as 
well as the field of publication with the lit- 
erary results of their explorations and dis- 
coveries. College sports have become of 
interest, not alone to the young men who 
share in them, and to their institutions, 
but to the public at large, so that their foot- 







BUILDINGS OP THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA, PHILADELPHIA. 



tion, is hardly ten years old, has more than 
3,500 students. 

Colleges and universities, generally 
speaking, have been broadening their work 
and their policies of late years, confining 
themselves less to instruction in the classics 
and mathematics and giving more atten- 
tion to modem languages, literature and 
the sciences. They have come closer to the 
life of the people, and have taken a larger 



ball, baseball and boat races are considered 
among the most important sporting events 
every season. Even the most conservative 
and scholastic of the universities and col- 
leges yield to these changing conditions, 
and even though they may sometimes con- 
sider that these sports hold too prominent 
a place in the life of an educational insti- 
ttition they realize the advertising value of 
publicity, and that their new classes each 



Things XOe All Should Knotv 



341 



year are m large degree attracted by the 
athletic successes of the respective iustitu- 
tions. 

It is impressive to note the immense 
gifts that have been made within the last 
few years to certain colleges and universi- 
ties by some of our wealthy Americans. 
Andrew Carnegie has given $10,000,000 
to establish the University of the United 
States at Washington, and $10,000,000 to 
the Scotch universities, all within a single 
year. John D. Eockefellei-, in the same 
year, 1901, gave $2,000,000 to American 
colleges, and within ten years has given to 
the University of Chicago approximately 
$8,000,000. Mrs. Stanford, in 1901, gave 
t; Leland Stanford Junior University in 
California, property valued at $30,000,- 
000, and the bequests of her hiisband and 
her own gifts prior to that time had already 
amounted to many millions. Mrs. Hearst 
gave to the University of California prop- 
erty amoimting to more than $10,000,000. 
Cecil Ehodes in his will left sums amount- 
ing to $20,000,000 to assist the cause of ed- 
ucation in the English universities, this 
amount to be available as scholarship fiinds 
for students from England, the British col- 
onies and the United States. D. K. Pear- 
sons of Chicago has given more than $3,- 
000,000 to colleges throughout the United 
States within the last few years. Mrs. Jo- 
seph L. Xewcombe in 1901 gave $3,000,- 
000 to Tulane University at jSTew Orleans. 

The foregoing are but the greatest gifts 
out of a long list. Several others could be 
named, amounting to $1,000,000 each, and 
scores of sums from $10,000 upward. In 
most cases the amounts were given on con- 
dition that the institutions to which the 
money was granted would raise similar 
sums through subscriptions from alumni 



and other friends, so that the amounts 
given in large sums have been virtually 
doubled by the raising of smaller amounts. 
Xo one can fail to appreciate the great 
sigTiifieance of such an educational move- 
ment. It is a recognized fact that educa- 
tion does more to advance the true welfare 
of a nation than any other influence that 
can be enlisted, and American colleges and 
universities have always been a factor of 
great importance in influencing the nation- 
al life and policies on important questions 
at issue. With education multiplying as 
it is sure to do rapidly under the impetus 
given it during the closing years of the last 
century, we may expect to see even greater 
results in the future than there have been 
in the past. 

AMERICAN COLLEGE SPORTS 

Probably no other influence has been as 
effective in making athletic sports generally 
popular as has been the great interest 
taken in them by the young men of Amer- 
ican colleges. Leading a studious life 
through a large part of their time as they 
do, it is necessary for them to take every op- 
portunity for outdoor exercise, for the sake 
of their health and the quality of their 
work. Stimulated to rivalry, first among 
themselves in their own colleges as they are, 
and then by loyalty to their institutions to 
rivalry with ether neighboring schools, the 
spirit of emulation has grown, until now 
the annual competitions and events in ath- 
letic sports have become almost a supreme 
factor in the college year to hosts of young 
men. 

In the fall, each year, football holds the 
place of highest importance, and in the 
spring baseball takes a corresponding rank. 



342 



Thin^^ tOe All Should Knottf 



As incidental factors throughout the year 
come contests in tennis, track athletics, 
gymnasium athletics, rowing, and other 
sports. 




BRINGING OUT THE SHELL 

There are many colleges which do not 
have access to water, and consequently 
cannot enter the rowing competition. Those 
which are located more favorably, however, 
either at the seashore or beside some lake 
or river, find in these contests one of the 
most important events of the year and one 
which attracts to it thousands of visitors 
from far away. The "big race" every 
year, as it is considered in the college 
world, is that of the eight-oar crews of Yale 
and Harvard Universities, usually rowed 
at Few London, Connecticut, on the 
Thames river. On the same day there is 
also a race between four-oar crews and 
freshmen crews from the same universities, 
and the three events serve to make the day 



an important one in college athletics. 
These, however, are not the only college 
crews that race every year, with great im- 
portance placed upon the victories. In this 
country Princeton, Columbia, Cornell, 
Pennsylvania and other eastern universi- 
ties, and several of the large western col- 
leges and universities arrange similar 
events, while in England the annual race 
between Oxford and Cambridge attracts 
world-wide interest. 

The apparently frail craft in which these 
races are rowed cut through the water at 
an astonishing speed, the rowing records 




THE POLE VAULT. 

for college teams being as low as four miles 

in a few seconds more than twenty minutes. 

Almost every American college and 

school, from Harvard and Yale down to 



( 



Things We AU Should Knoio 



343 



the smallest village grammar school, has its 
series of games for the football champion- 
ship every fall. "When Harvard and Yale, 
Princeton and Columbia, or Pennsylvania 
and Cornell play their annual game, wheth- 
er it be in Xew York, Boston or elsewhere, 
on Thanksgiving day, thousands of enthu- 
siasts make riotous applause for the victors 
on whose strength and agility so much de- 
pends. In Xew York, for instance, 60,000 
people have been known to be present at 
such a game. Thanksgiving day, indeed, has 
become known as the great day for football 
events the country over. This is one game 
into which professionalism has entered 
hardly at all, fortunately for athletic sports. 
Another noteworthy game of football is 
that played between the cadet teams of 
West Point and Annapolis. It is the army 
against the navy in this instance, and the 
young cadets from the two national schools 
of warfare fight bravely to win the honor 
for their respective arms of the service. 
The same energy that they display at this 
time in a manly spirit of athletic rivalry is 
the quality which serves them well in later 
years when they enter more important un- 
dertakings in the service of their country. 
An accompanying illustration represents 
one of these games, played at Philadelphia 
on the field of the University of Pennsyl- 
vania. More than 30,000 spectators wit- 
nessed the spirited contest. Among them 
were President Eoosevelt and the members 
of his cabinet, the members of the Senate 
and the House of Representatives, and a 
number of distinguished officers of the 
army and the navy. Many special trains 
ran from Washington, Xew York and the 
other neighboring cities to accommodate 
the immense crowds that desired to view 
■the contest between the young men who are 
to be our future generals and admirals. 




344 



OCEAN, 



Things te/e AU Shout d Kjnotav 



LAKE AND MOUNTAIN 
RESORTS 



In spite of the energy and fidelity with 
which Americans stick to their business at 
all hazards, there are few countries where 
great summer and winter resorts are more 
highly developed than they are in the 
United States. On the Atlantic coast, from 
Maine to ISTew Jersey, a succession of beau- 
tiful summer resorts have grown up, where 
splendid hotels, attractive bathing beaches 
and the other conditions which make such 
places pleasurable, attract himdreds of 
thousands of visitors every year. At At- 
lantic City, ISTew Jersey, is the dividing 
line between the vsdnter and summer coast 
resorts, for here in both seasons visitors 
crowd the hotels. Further south it is 
chiefly winter travelers who patronize the 
seaside, all the way down to the tip of the 
Florida peninsula and thence around the 
coast of the Gulf of Mexico to the Texas 
cities themselves. 

The coasts of the New England states, 
and Long Island, Delaware and E"ew Jer- 
sey, are marked with charming resorts 
every few miles. Florida, with its splen- 
did hotels facing the g-ulf, forms a distinct 
resort region of its own for the winter. 
From Mobile, Alabama, to New Orleans, 
f aeing the Gulf of Mexico, is a shore which 
the southerners term the American Riviera. 
On the Pacific another distinct group of re- 
sorts has developed, from San Diego in the 
south to Alaska in the north. San Fran- 
cisco becomes the dividing line between the 
summer and winter resorts on this coast. 
Southward from the metropolis of Califor- 
nia are such beautiful winter resorts as 
Monterey, Santa Bar.bara, Santa Catalina, 
Los Angeles and San Diego, while north- 
•*Rrd in the summer multitudes of tourists 




Thing^s XOe Alt Should Knotty 



take advantage of the mountain and coast 
beauties of Puget Sound, British Columbia, 
and the Alaskan shores even further north. 
Monterey and Santa Catalina, likewise, 
are almost as popular in the summer as in 
the winter. 

Between these two oceans a limitless va- 
riety of pleasure grounds await the vaca- 
tion wanderer at any season. The moun- 
tains of 'Revf England, the Adirondacks, 
the Georgia pines, the lakes of Michigan, 
Wisconsin and Minnesota, the mountains 
of California and the far west offer choice 
inexhaustible, l^ature has given to this 
country as lavishly of opportunities for 
pleasure in wholesome climates and among 
beautiful surroundings as it has given of 
the wealth of the forests, the mines and the 
farm. He would be exacting indeed who 
should fail to be satisfied in whatever di- 
rection he desired to use his activities of 
mind and body. 

j« ^ je 

WINTER SPORTS IN NORTHERN 
CITIES 

Every country has sports peculiarly its 
own in the beginning, and those that are 
best for general use are invariably passed 
over the boundaries into neighboring coun- 
tries for appreciative adoption there. It is 
to Canada, thanks to its cold but favorable 
winters, that the world owes the develop- 
ment of some of the most wholesome, en- 
joyable and picturesque of athletic sports. 
In Quebec, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, 
Winnipeg and a host of smaller cities of 
the Dominion of Canada, the winter is the 
season of greatest merriment, the time of 
most active outdoor life. The low temper- 
ature and the deep snow are themselves the 
factors of which the people take advantage 
to have their j oiliest times. 




346 



Things tOe A// Should Knoi^ 



Sleigh riding and coasting, which in the 
cities a little farther south are uncertain 
treats, here become the standard form of 
amusements through the long winters. The 
Canadian hills are gay with the bright cos- 
tumes of multitudes of merry coasting par- 
ties. It is here that that most picturesque 
of snow craft, the toboggan, has been de- 
veloped to the fleet vehicle used so gener- 
ally, as a substitute for the ordinary sled 
with runners, on Canadian hills. The to- 
boggan, indeed, of late years, has been in- 
troduced to a considerable extent into the 
United States, where it has gained much 
popularity. Instead of runners it has a 
smooth, polished surface for its whole 
width, and in an icy trough worn upon the 
steep hillside the coasters attain a breath- 
less speed before they reach the bottom of 
the decline. Here, too, in all their pictur- 
esque beauty, are seen the gay costumes of 
many-colored blanket cloth worn as suits 
and dresses by the young men and women. 

The snowshoe is another Canadian im- 
provement of a primitive Indian inven- 
tion. Over the deep snows which gather in 
the northern winters the snowshoes bear 
the sportsman without trouble, so that he 
may race or hunt at will, uninterrupted by 
the drifts. 

Of course skating is as popular during 
the Canadian winter as it is in other coun- 
tries where cold weather comes in earnest. 
The rivers and lakes, however, are usually 
covered with snow to such an extent that 
skating is virtually confined to large rinks 
which exist in every city, where brilliant 
illumination helps to make the scene with- 
in more gay than it might otherwise be. 

Ice-boating, too, has its devotees in Can- 
ada. This inspiring sport, however, has 
its chief favor on the Hudson river and on 
some lakes of New York and Wisconsin. 





ON TUB TOBOGGAN SLIDE— CANADA'S FAVORJTE WINTER SPORT, 



348 



Things tOe Atl Should Knoio 




"THE BOUNCE " 

Ice-boats are built in triangular form, rest- 
ing on three skates, tbe one in the rear serv- 
ing as a rudder. They have no cabins, and 
are but skeleton craft, sliding over the ice 
at railroad speeed and carrying a spread 
of canvas like that of a small yacht. Ex- 
perts in handling ice-boats are able to ma- 
neuver them in any direction as readily as 
their cousins at sea are handled, and there 
is no more beautiful sight than a race be- 
tween a fleet of these picturesque craft. 

As a center of winter sport, and an at- 
traction for multitudes of visitors, Quebec, 
Montreal, Winnipeg, St. Paul and one or 
two other cities at various times have built 
great palaces and castles of ice. Some of 
these have been noteworthy for their archi- 
tectural beauty and grace no less than for 
their novelty. Balls and festivals, illumi- 
nations, fireworks, sham battles, and other 



sports more truly a part of winter festiv- 
ities, have centered around them to make 
carnivals of winter which have attracted 
thousands of travelers from long distances 
to witness the novel and beautiful scenes. 
If one has the instinct for outdoor pleas- 
ure, and is resourceful, he will discover 
that there is no season when nature does 
not offer some means of sport, both whole- 




OVER THE HURDLE IN A SNOWSHOE RACE. 

some and entertaining, and winter nowa- 
days does not stand at the bottom of the 
list. 

HORSE RACING THE WORLD 
OVER 

Horse racing for many generations has 
been called the "sport of kings," and never 
has there been a time when the sport was 
more popular or more widely enjoyed than 
it is today. "It is differences of opinion 
that make horse races," said a clever writer, 
and there are few countries where the peo- 
ple do not differ as to the merits of their 



Things tOe Alt Should Knotuf 



349 



Respective steeds, and back tlieir judgment 
for a race to test the facts. It is hard to 
travel to a land so remote that horse races 
are not popular events in the year's sport- 
ing annals. In Melbourne, the temporary 
capital of Australia and the metropolis of 
that island continent, is a race course in 



States as well. In this city of less than 
500,000 inhabitants, 100,000 persons will 
gather at Flemington race course on the 
day of the Melbourne Cup race, and the 
prize to the winner of the race sometimes 
amounts to as much as $75,000. 

Far on the other side of the world from 




'DERBY DAY" AT WASHIXGTOX PARK RACE COURSE, CHICAGO. 



vrhich the people take pride, claiming it to 
be the finest in the world. And there at 
Flemington, once a year, is run a race for 
a prize known as the Melbourne Cup, 
■which attracts visitors not merely from all 
the neighboring colonies of Australia but 
actually from England and the United 



Melbourne, in May every year, the people 
of London, and, indeed, strangers from all 
the world, gather at Epsom Downs to see 
the Derby. Unlike most race courses there 
is no charge made for entering the course at 
Epsom Downs and viewing the race, and 
thus, with free admission as a temptation^ 



350 



Things tOe All Should Knotu 



literally thousands of people spend the 
night before the race walking the twenty 
miles from London in order to be among 
the multitude present. Crowds approach- 
ing half a million have been known to be at 
Epsom on Derby day. 

Across the channel from England the 
French in turn have taken up horse racing, 
and at Longchamps, near Paris, is a beauti- 
ful course where every year, a few days 
after the London Derby, is run another 
noteworthy race called the Grand Prix, or 
the race for the grand prize. Here gathers 
the fashion of Europe for the most famous 
day in the annual sporting calendar of 
Paris. 

These three races, the Melbourne Cup, 
the Derby and the Grand Prix, contend for 
the honor of being the greatest race in the 
world. Here in America we have several 
v^hich rival each other in importance in the 



sporting world, among them the Futurity 
and Suburban at Sheepshead Bay, New 
York, and the American Derby at Chicago, 
with two or three other races that might be 
named as of the highest interest to the lov- 
ers of the horse. These events attract more 
attention year after year. The American 
Derby, run every spring at the Washington 
Park race course in Chicago, has earned 
for its winner as much as $49,500 in stake 
money. Sixty thousand persons have been 
present to witness the race, and the display 
of splendid equipages and brilliant fashion 
makes it noteworthy even beyond the im- 
portance of the sporting event itself. 

ARMIES AND WARS OF THE 
WORLD TODAY 

In spite of the advance of education and 
enlightenment, the increased facility of 




EXGAL LANCERS FROJI INDIA ROUTING CHINESE CAVAI.RY NEAR PEKIN. 



Things Xife All Should Knoto 



351 



communication and better acquaintance 
between the nations of the earth, and the 
progress of material affairs in this indus- 
trial age, there is little cessation in the mili- 
tary activities of the world. Of late years 
the actual hostilities between the great civ- 
ilized powers have not been numerous, and 
yet there has been hardly a year without its 
war. Spain and the United States, Greece 



raised up to plague them there has been 
hardly any interruption. Great Britain, 
indeed, is never at peace, and at least one 
London paper has a standing head line, 
year in and year out, "our little wars," un- 
der which general title are recorded every 
year, fatalities that in their total would 
amount to the losses of a great battle. Egypt 
and the Sudan, Central Africa, South 



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A BICYCLE BRIGADE IN THE BRITISH ARMY. 



and Turkey, Great Britain and the Boers, 
have had their interchange of warfare. Ja- 
pan and China fought over the Korean 
question. Various South American repub- 
lics have engaged in wars, important enough 
to themselves and yet hardly noticed by the 
rest of the world. 

In conflicts between the powers and tEe 
various savage or rebellious foes they have 



Africa, the Afghan hills, and indeed almost 
every place where England's colonial efforts 
come in contact with native races in posses- 
sion resenting innovation, are scenes of fre- 
quent outbreaks against British rule. 

France, likewise, in Senegal, Dahomey, 
Algeria, the Sudan, Madagascar and Indo- 
China, has had to fight its way for colonial 
power. Italy first succeeded and then failed 



352 



Thin^^ XOe Alt Should Knoio 



disastrously in Abyssinia, and is now left 
with, a fringe of barren coast on the Eed 
Sea to show for the enormous losses of 
blood and treasure in the African cam- 
paigns. 

Spain has seen her whole colonial posses- 
sions vanish, except a few worthless tracts 
at the edge of the desert in Western Africa, 
and from these she draws no profit. Bel- 
gium, with the Congo Free State, seems to 
be planning commercial development for 
that great tropical territory, but the end 
will be reached only 
with great labor and 
cost of men and money. 
Germany and Portugal, 
likewise, have Central 
African colonies, in 
every instance costing 
far more than they re- 
turn, and even with the 
promise of ultimate 
profit there will be a 
long intervening period 
of bitter warfare with 
natives. Eussia is con- 
stantly (extending her 
boundaries southward, 
but has not yet any 
colonies or possessions 
except those of con- 
tiguous territory with 
the great empire itself. 

We of the United States, fighting Spain 
to release Cuba from the yoke of oppression, 
found ourselves inheriting a war with the 
Filipinos, who were already demanding 
freedom from their Spanish oppressors. 
Within its first three years this war of ours 
witb the Filipinos cost us immensely more 
in money and in men than the parent con- 
flict with Spain itself. 



So it is that all Europe, and indeed all 
the world, is rapidly becoming an armed 
camp, l^ations have adopted the theory 
that safety can be assured only by eternal 
vigilance and military strength. The peace 
rescript of the Emperor of Eussia, from 
whicb sentimentalists counted so much, 
was hardly circulated before there was such 
an outbreak of warfare as the world had not 
seen for many years. Great scientists and 
inventors are concentrating their attention 
upon improvements in the mechanism and 




CAMEL-GUN WITH BRITISH ARMY IN THE SUDAN. 



art of war. Improved rifles, projectiles 
and explosives of many varieties have al- 
tered the character of warfare on land al- 
most as much as it has changed at sea. No 
longer are there spirited charges across 
open fields, or steady advances of regiment 
against regiment. With rifles effective at 
a range of one mile, and smokeless powder 
for the explosive, a force would be annihi- 



Things We Alt 

lated long before hand to hand fighting 
could begin. Artillery and long-distance 
firing, therefore, have supplemented close 
work with muskets. Balloons, war-kites, 
searchlights, machine guns, armored rail- 
way cars and other innovations have come 
into modern warfare. Field hospitals and 
ambulance systems likewise have been im- 
proved, but the happy time is not yet when 
the Red Cross will have no work to do, and 
the military organizations of the powers can 
release their millions of soldiers to some 
more profitable and productive vocation. 

Some detailed information concerning 
the newest explosives, projectiles, guns and 
armies will serve to indicate the activities 
in this direction. Picric acid is obtained 
by the action of nitric acid on carbolic acid, 
and from it are made such remarkable de- 
structive materials as dynamite, maximite, 
cordite and lyddite. The latter was the 
explosive most favored by the British in 
their campaigns against the Boers in South 
Africa. These high explosives, like smoke- 
less powder, are not generally dangerous to 
handle. They must be prepared with de- 
tonating caps for the purpose of exploding 
them. The dum-dum bullet, a fatal pro- 
jectile for small arms, is made of nickel, 
with a point of soft lead. When such a bul- 
let strikes any object it spreads in the shape 
of a mushroom, making a peculiarly pain- 
ful and deadly wound. They are not coun- 
tenanced by the powers openly. 

The various machine guns and rapid-fire 
guns discharge twelve to 1,500 shots a min- 
ute, according to .their size and mechanism. 
Some of these are wholly automatic. The 
Maxim gun, for instance, is so arranged 
that after each recoil of a previous dis- 
charge the shock opens the breech, extracts 
the empty shell, takes a fresh cartridge. 



Should Kjiotou 353 

cocks the gun, pushes the shell into its 
chamber and fires the gun. The cartridges 
are loaded into the gun in a belt, and all the 
operator has to do is to pull the trigger the 
first time and the belt is ground through 
the machinery at the rate of 600 shots a 
minute. With such explosives, projectiles 
and weapons in use it is apparent that war- 
fare is becoming a more dangerous pursuit 
all the time. The following table shows the 
armed strength of the great powers : 

Armies Navies 

Country Peace War Ships Men 

Austria-Hungary 382,808 2,000,000 103 12,899 

France 629,500 1.300,000 532 25.500 

Germany 621,162 3,260,000 223 33,500 

Great Britain 431.302 805,173 537 128.000 

Itaiv 288,409 2,000.000 161 30,398 

Japan 225,000 800,000 229 36,080 

Russia 1,800,000 4,000,000 220 60,000 

United States 91,950 309 46,000 

THE GERMAN EMPEROR'S 
AMERICAN YACHT 

The schooner yacht Meteor, which was 
christened by Miss Alice Roosevelt, daugh- 
ter of the President, when it was launched 
in ITew York on February 25th, 1902, in 
the presence of Prince Henry of Germany, 
is the first pleasure boat that was ever built 
for a European monarch in an American 
shipyard. The vessel from stem to stern 
was the product of American builders, 
American designers and American work- 
men. His Imperial Majesty, the Emperor 
of Germany, desired that to be the case, in 
order that he might feel that he possessed 
a genuine American product. It was not, 
however, the first American pleasure boat 
owned by Wilhelm II., who already pos- 
sessed an American-built schooner, the 
Yampa, which he had bought some years be- 
fore from its owner, who was cruising in 
German waters. When he ordered the Me- 
teor he commissioned the designers of the 



354 



Things tOe Alt Should Kjioio 



Yampa to build a larger schooner, with 
such additional improvements as have been 
made in the last fifteen years. Only a few 
months ago the materials out of which this 
famous little international pleasure craft 
was built were scattered all over the United 
States, from the Atlantic to the Pacific. 
Polished masts of white pine were growing 
wild in their native Oregon forests. The 
iron and steel in the beams and plates were 
unmined ore in the Pennsylvania hills. 
The hardwoods for the finishing of the 
interior were hewn by American hands 
in American forests; the interior ap- 
pointments, the plumbing and the fittings 
were made by American workmen, the sails 
were made by American sail-makers from 
American canvas, and the rigging was all 
the work of our own countrymen. It was 
natural and appropriate that it should be 
christened by a genuine American girl, to 
gracefully emphasize the national character 
of the whole performance. 

The Meteor is a large yacht, having a 
length over all of 160 feet, a water-line 
length of 120 feet, a beam of twenty- 
seven feet and a draught of seventeen 
feet. There is thus deck-room enough 
for a court reception. Accommodation 
is furnished for a crew of at least 
thirty men. There are two saloons, the 
main and the ladies' cabin, and three large 
staterooms, in addition to the Emperor's 
spacious suite. In size, indeed, the Meteor 
is the largest schooner-yacht ever put forth 
from an American shipyard. The quarters 
are ample, though without ostentation. The 
comfort of the voyagers was the point 
chiefly aimed at. Altogether it is a hand- 
some craft, quite good enough for an Em- 
peror or an American. Its cost was about 
$150,000. 



THE SECOND AND GREATER 
BROOKLYN BRIDGE 

The Brooklyn Bridge is a name that has 
been known the world over for many a year 
as that of one of the most noteworthy 
achievements of modern times. A suspen- 
sion bridge spanning the great East River 
and bearing the traffic of two great cities, it 
was indeed worthy of its high fame. But a 
time is coming now when the original 
Brooklyn Bridge will have to take a second 
place and be distinguished by a more spe- 
cific name, for another Brooklyn Bridge 
is under construction that surpasses it in 
every way. The new bridge likewise spans 
the East River, connecting ]N"ew York City 
on Manhattan Island with Brooklyn on 
Long Island. It is about a mile above the 
old bridge, and consequently will draw the 
great trafiic from the shopping district of 
JSTew York that until this time has been 
compelled to patronize the ferries. 

The two steel towers from which the 
great roadway of the bridge is suspended are 
1,600 feet apart, or nearly one-third of a 
mile. They rise to a height of 335 feet above 
the water, and the bridge itself is so high 
above the river that the masts of the largest 
boat may pass under it. From the tops of 
these great towers four steel cables, each 
as large as a man's body, carry a two-story 
platform twice as wide as a city street, with 
six railroad tracks, two carriage ways, two 
promenades and two bicycle paths. In or- 
der to attain the height over the river re- 
quired for navigation, the tracks have to be 
carried over more than half a mile of streets 
and houses at each end of the bridge. The 
weight of the 1,600-foot span between the 
towers is 16,000,000 pounds, and it will 
carry with safety a moving load of 9,000,- 



Thin^^ XOe Alt Should Knoiv 



355 



000 pounds. The steel in each tower weighs 
6,000,000 pounds. The total cost of the 
bridge and its approaches is about $9,000,- 
000, and of the land about $10,000,000 
more. These figures are sufficiently elo- 
quent to speak for themselves, and this 
greatest of American bridges is indeed a 
triumph of the builders. 

HOW MAPS AND GLOBES ARE 
MADE 

iSTow that the relations of the different 
countries of the world have become so in- 
timate and news is transmitted so rapidly 
and regularly by means of the electric tele- 
graph and distributed by the morning pa- 
per, it has become essential to have at halid 
for ready reference maps of all the world, 
in order to understand intelligently the 
things that are happening. 

Chicago is the map making center of the 
country. It is said that more maps are 
sent out of that city annually than from 
all the other cities of the United States 
combined. Most of the railroads obtain 
their maps from Chicago. Hundreds of 
thousands of school maps are thrown off 
Chicago presses, and the majority of 
bicyclists who are ranging the country car- 
ry in their pockets Chicago-published maps 
made specially for them. Maps from the 
cheapest to the most expensive are made 
here, and Avhether cheap or expensive they 
follow the same path from the first drawing 
to the last time of going through the press. 
The difference comes in the size and the 
accuracy and care in the making which 
distinguishes them. 

Wlien the map publisher makes up his 
mind to publish a new map, one of Illinois, 



for instance, he orders the draughtsmen to 
make an original drawing. While any 
mechanical or architectural draughtsman 
can draw a map, the number who are re- 
garded as expert map draughtsmen is small. 
The draughtsman takes the map of Illinois 
published last, and begins his work by copy- 
ing it on the scale required. That is, he 
copies it larger or smaller according to the 
number of miles that each inch on the new 
map will represent. A map of Illinois six 
feet long by four feet wide would be made 
on a scale of six to one ; that is to say, each 
inch on the map would represent six miles 
of distance. 

But the new map must be "up to date," 
for Americans insist that their maps must 
show the very latest changes in boundaries, 
railroads, rivers, size and importance of 
towns and cities, and modifications of lake 
shores and seacoasts. Before the draughts- 
man begins his work the publisher has col- 
lected from government surveys, railroad 
time tables, railroad maps, and county and 
township surveyors all the information he 
can find regarding changes. With this in- 
formation before him the map-maker be- 
gins his work. If any dispute or uncer- 
tainty arises over any particular section, a 
tracing is made of the territory under dis- 
pute, and this is sent to the official surveyor 
of that district for correction or approval. 
The drawing made in India ink is of the 
size that the map is to be made. All the 
lettering is put in with the pen, but merely 
to indicate the place where the type must 
print the names of the counties, towns, etc. 
When the drawing is completed it is taken 
to the engraving-room and turned over to 
the map engraver. 

The engraver first takes a smooth-faced 
copper plate of the required size, and black- 



556 



Things tOe Alt Should Knobo 



ens the face by holding it over a smoking 
lamp, or by painting it with lamp-black, 
and then covers it with a composition made 
of wax and gum, laying on the composition 
to the thickness of light blotting paper. To 
get the composition even, the copper plate 
is slightly heated, for the composition melts 
easily. When the plate is thus coated it is 
ready to receive a transfer of the drawing. 
The back of the paper on which the map is 
drawn is covered lightly with black, brown 
or blue chalk, and this chalked surface is 
laid upon the wax composition which covers 
the copper plate. Then the engraver, with 
a fine steel pencil or stylus, goes over every 
line and mark in the drawing. As "the steel 
point moves over the paper the drawing is 
copied on the composition, just as a copy of 
a drawing is made with black carbon paper. 
The composition is white and the chalk 
lines stand out conspicuously. 

The plate is now ready for the graver, or 
V-shaped tool used by the engraver. With 
it he goes over the chalk lines, cutting out 
the wax composition to the copper plate. 
As he first coated the plate with lamp black, 
he can readily see his work, because the 
graver leaves a black line wherever it 
touches the copper. The engraver does not 
cut out the letters. He has an easier and 
better way; for, setting the names up in 
type, he places the type in a holder some- 
what like a bookbinder's stamp, and then 
heating the type slightly, presses them into 
the wax to the copper. The holder is so 
arranged that the type can be set up either 
in a curved or straight line. Perhaps; ':here 
is nothing on a map which excites more 
curiosity and draws out more guesses than 
the names of the tovsms and cities which 
gtraddle railroad lines, curve around rivers, 
and appear in a badly mixed-up condition. 



Every one knows that the names are printed 
by type, but how the type came there is a 
deep mystery to most persons. 

When an exact copy of the drawing, with 
the names marked in type, is made on the 
plate, the engraver proceeds to "build up" 
the engraving. He takes a piece of the wax 
composition about the size and form of a 
lead pencil, and with a heated iron tool 
which looks like a piece of darning needle 
stuck into a handle, he builds up little 
mounds of wax on each side of the lines 
and letters. He does this to obtain the 
"relief," for all the time he has really been 
making molds in which to cast a copper 
electrotype. To pour melted copper into 
this mold Avould melt the wax instantly, so 
the map-maker turns to electricity as the 
agent which will deposit the copper in his 
wax mold. He suspends the engraved plate 
or mold in a bath, after first coating the 
mold with graphite. ISTot far from it hangs 
a pure copper plate. To each plate he con- 
nects a wire leading from a small dynamo. 
The current passing from the pure copper 
plate to the mold, through the liquid, car- 
ries with it the copper, which is deposited 
in the mold, thus really making a copper 
cast of it. When enough copper has been 
deposited, the mold is taken off, the copper 
cast removed, and the reverse of the draw- 
ing standing out in bold relief is taken off. 
This thin shell is backed up with metal to 
make it solid and strong, and it is then 
ready to be placed in the press to print thou- 
sands of maps of Illinois. To engrave a 
map about 11 inches wide by 14 inches 
long requires six weeks' work of the en- 
graver. 

The electrotype thus made is used to 
print the black map. For every color used 
in the maps, a separate plate must be made. 



I 



Things XOe All Should Knoto 



357 



This expfains why the price of a map in- 
creases in proportion to the number of col- 
ors used. The largest map made in one 
piece in Chicago is 66 inches long and 46 
inches wide. ' Anything larger than that is 
made in sections, and the sections are neat- 
ly pieced together to make the whole. 

Most of the maps made by or for the 
government are not made by the relief pro- 
cess, but are engraved on steel, copper, or 
stone. In engraving a map on steel, the 
steel plate is first coated with a peculiar 
varnish, which is acid proof. A transfer 
of the drawing is made on the varnish, but 
unlike the -transfer made on the wax com- 
position in the relief process, the copy is 
reversed. The engraver cuts through the 
varnish with his graver, and then the steel 
plate is placed in a bath of acid, which 
attacks the steel where it is not protected by 
the varnish. When the engraving is fin- 
ished the maps are printed by the usual 
method of printing steel engravings. 

For maps where extreme accuracy is re- 
quired, as in coast surveys, soundings, and 
navigators' charts, a sheet of thin, trans- 
parent gelatine is placed over the drawing. 
With a sharp steel pencil the engraver 
copies the drawing into the gelatine. He 
then dusts blue powder over the gelatine, 
and the powder remains in the scratches or 
etching made by the steel pencil. By press- 
ing this into the varnish the copy, in re- 
verse, is transferred in clean, sharp lines. 
Engraving on copper or stone is done in 
much the same manner, and maps made 
from the stone are simply lithographed. 
The engraving is first made in the stone, 
after a copy of the drawing has been trans- 
ferred to it, and then ^ transfer is made 
from the engraving to a flat stone by the 
lithographic process. The largest map 



printed from stone is 36 inches by 62 
inches. For large wall maps the sections, 
which pasted together on cloth make the 
whole, are 48 inches by 42 inches. 

What was said to be the largest map ever 
printed was exhibited at the World's Fair. 
It was the map of the United States, 14^ 
by 19| feet in size. Each inch on the map 
represented eighteen miles. Near it stood 
the electrotype from which the map was 
printed. Its area covered nearly 300 
square feet. It was made up of pieces so 
cleverly joined that the joints could not be 
detected. 

The making of globes requires time, 
skill and patience. In high-class globes the 
sphere appears to be covered with a single 
piece of paper. As a matter of fact the 
globe is covered with twenty-four pieces, 
except in small globes, where half as many 
pieces are pasted on. The lines represent- 
ing latitude on a globe appear to be straight 
lines. But with the exception of the 
equator, all the lines are curved, the curves 
being of such radius that when the pieces 
are pasted on the sphere the lines are 
straight. 

In one map publisher's engraving-room 
in Chicago an engraver worked two and a 
half years engraving the plates for an 
eighteen-inch globe. He first secured a per- 
fect sphere eighteen inches in diameter. 
This sphere was tested in various ways un- 
til the engraver was certain it was a true 
sphere. Then he divided it into twelve 
sections on the line of the equator, and laid 
it out on flat paper. Each section was cigar- 
shaped, curving evenly from point to point. 
When he cut it and pasted it on his model 
it wrinkled, and did not lie snugly to the 
bulge of the globe. He had to experiment 
for a time until he secured the proper 



358 



Things ti/e Alt Should Knoto 



sliape, width and curve for his sections, 
and then he laid out his map accordingly. 
As eight colors were to be used in printing 
the globe map, it required fifty-six plates 
before the globe could be covered. 

The globes themselves are made of 
papier-mache. On this a coat of plaster of 
paris is laid, and this is turned true in a 
lathe. This process is used in Chicago in 
making all high-class globes. The greatest 
care must be exercised in making the globe 
maps, for the paper shrinks, and this 
shrinkage, if too pronounced, would ruin 
the globe. The paper is always run through 
the press one way. That is, the sheets are 
fed in exactly as they lay in the roll of 
paper when it came from the paper-mill. 
In this way the fiber of the paper always 
runs in the same direction in going through 
the press. 

The largest globe made for sale is 30 
inches in diameter. Until recently but few 
globes were made in the United States. To- 
day thousands of them are made and sold in 
Chicago alone. An 18-inch globe is now 
sold for about $35 ; ten years ago the price 
of an 8-inch globe was the same as that of 
an 18-inch globe to-day. The cause of this 
great reduction in price is found in the 
constantly increasing demand for globes, 
for 100 high-grade globes are now sold to 
one sold ten years ago. 

WATCHES AND CLOCKS 

The sixteenth century inventor of the 
watch or spring clock would have deemed 
it a dream if to his Swiss soul had come 
a vision of the great watch factories of to- 
day, their thousands of employes, the di- 
vision of labor, and the enormous output. 
Indeed, those Swiss manufacturers who 



until recent years enjoyed a monopoly of 
the making of fine watches, can hardly 
realize now the extent of the industry in 
this country. 

Those watchmaker shops of bygone days, 
where one or two men constructed an entire 
time piece, have given way to great fac- 
tories where hundreds and even thousands 
of employes earn their daily bread. The 
dingy work shop has been supplanted by 
great factory buildings with a thousand dis- 
tinct departments, well lighted and well 
ventilated rooms, and a complicated system 
centering about the superintendent's supply 
room, to which all parts are taken when 
completed, and about the factory office, 
which sells watches not only at home but 
also to the natives of Africa, to the Aus- 
tralian sheepmen, in short, to the inhabi- 
tants of the uttermost parts of the earth. 
The simple hand tools have given place to 
hundreds of machines, propelled by one 
central engine under one guiding hand. 

American watches now form a great bulk 
of the world's entire watch production. 
Illinois is the seat of two of the greatest 
factories in the country, one at Spring- 
field and the other at Elgin. Massachusetts 
has the great Waltham factory, and the 
work of watch making has been taken up 
in Ohio. 

The modern watch is marvelously com- 
plex, yet marvelously simple. Its construc- 
tion is merely the perfect union of a mul- 
titude of simple details. First it is neces- 
sary to separate the watch into case and 
works, for in spite of a popular idea to 
the contrary, they have no dependence upon 
each other. "Watch works or "movements" 
in most American factories are manufac- 
tured in sizes ranging from number four, 
which is about the size of a half dollar, to 



Things XOe All Should Knotv 



359 



number eighteen, which is fully twice as 
large. Cases are made corresponding to 
each of these sizes, and the sizes and the 
cases are adapted to any make of watch. 
They are the product of factories estab- 
lished for that purpose and, of course, are 
of endless variety. 

The movements are constructed after 
various plans, but in most makes they have 
for their foundation two plates, the lower 
and heavier one called the pillar plate, and 
the upper plate, which is often in several 
sections. Between these two the mechanism 
of the watch is arranged. The lower plate 
generally is of brass, the upper of nickle. 
They are punched from strips of sheet 
metal to exactly the right size and shape, 
after which they are smoothed and pol- 
ished. 

To allow room for the little wheels, in- 
dentations absolutely exact are made in the 
foundation plates. This work is done by a 
wonderful machine which follows the out- 
lines of a steel model, made for a pattern, 
with absolute mechanical accuracy. The 
thickness of the plate and the depth of the 
indentations are measured so as to be per- 
fect, according to a gauge two degrees of 
which equal a thousandth part of an inch. 
Into the plate then are drilled the neces- 
sary screw holes and apertures for the 
jewel settings. For every step in the pro- 
cess of preparing the plates there is a new 
smoothing and polishing given them, so 
that all rough edges are continually re- 
moved. 

Watches containing from four to twenty- 
two jewels are made in most factories. The 
jewels used are garnets, rubies, sapphires 
and diamonds. Garnets are the ordinary 
jewels and a fifteen-jewel watch is consid- 
ered the standard. The garnets are im- 



ported from Coventry, England, and come 
in packages containing from 500 to 5,000 
pairs. 

The various wheels of a watch are 
stamped out of sheets of brass, with the 
exception of one or two pieces. The springs 
are made from sheet steel, and the screws 
of cold steel drawn from wire. The tem- 
pering of these various steel pieces is one 
of the classes of work in factories demand- 
ing highest order of skill. In tempering 
some varieties of screws, and some of them 
are so small that a glass is necessary to 
distinguish them from specks, the workman 
uses a thermometer of a peculiar sort in 
order that he may watch the temperature 
to which they are heated and then cooled 
at the exact point. Other varieties are tem- 
pered by watching their colors. They are 
heated over small furnaces until they give 
off light of the proper kind, and then are 
cooled. Screws in a watch of ordinary 
grade number about forty varieties, all of 
which are turned, sawed and gauged by 
girls in the factory. 

The pinions, wheels, axles and similar 
pieces are turned out by girls. One ma- 
chine cuts the pinion's length from a wire, 
turns it with three successive cuttings by 
tools which succeed one another auto- 
matically, and deposits the pinion. One 
girl seated on a stool which moves on rol- 
lers on a track can attend to five of these 
machines at once. The balance wheel, 
which flits back and forth with such never- 
varying regularity, requires forty different 
steps in its manufacture, simple as it ap- 
pears. Steel and brass disks are brazed 
together, and are ground down to the re- 
quired thickness. The united disk is then 
punched into a rim which is calculated to 
contain two parts of brass and one of steel. 



360 



Things Ve/e All Should Knobu 



In the edge of the rim, twenty-six holes 
are made, and the same number of small 
screws are inserted to preserve the balance 
of the wheel. 

After the foundation plate receiras its 
jewels and is polished, engraved antl 
stamped with whatever ornamental design 
it requires, and has passed inspection to- 
gether with the parts which have been ad- 
justed to it, the whole is brought to the 
assembling room, where all the work of the 
factory comes to a successful termination. 
Each part has been rendered perfect. The 
works are adjusted, piece by piece, by fine 
divisions of labor, passing from hand to 
hand down a long row of workmen's 
tables in' the process. Each man has his 
particular Avork and is responsible for it. 
When once assembled, the mechanism is 
tested as a whole. Thence it is taken to a 
refrigerator and subjected to cold. A stay 
in a hot-air compartment follows this, the 
temperature of the two tests ranging from 
forty degrees below zero to 103 degrees 
above. 'Not until it passes these tests with- 
out being affected is the watch considered 
to be perfect and ready for the market. 

The dial of the watch is made by a com- 
plicated process in Avhicli a metal plate is 
coated with enamel, fired and glazed like 
china, and painted mechanically with the 
figures and designs before a second firing. 

From the intricate details of Avatch 
manufacture it is necessary that the fac- 
tory system be perfect and this necessity 
is met in most American factories. As a 
general thing the employes are compara- 
tively well paid. The work is so special- 
ized, however, that none of the employes 
become watch makers in the real sense of 
the word, but only skilled in their particu- 
lar department. Each piece in the mech- 



anism and each step in the process of 
manufacture is governed by fixed designs 
and made largely by automatic machinery, 
so that often an unskilled, inexperienced 
girl guides the machine which turns out 
work the most essentially exact. 

The United States contains the largest 
clock factories of the world as well, and 
clocks made in this country are sold every- 
where, their reputation being so high that 
the German and Japanese imitations, made 
in large numbers of late years, have actu- 
ally adopted the designs and the labels of 
the American manufacturers, in order to 
obtain a share of the trade by deceiving the 
customer. The common spring-clocks 
might be called larger and rougher watches, 
and the processes of :tamping out founda- 
tion-plates, wheels, springs and screws are 
not unlike those of the watch factory, modi- 
fied to meet the conditions of the larger 
mechanism. The amazing cheapness with 
which watches and clocks are made, while 
their qualities of accuracy are preserved, 
is, of course, due entirely to the employ- 
ment of automatic machinery which pro- 
duces them in great numbers at the least 
cost. There is another advantage also in 
the fact that in machine-made pieces all 
the parts made by a given pattern are inter- 
changeable, so that in the event of an acci 
dent, repairs can be made with the greatest 
ease and at the least expense. 

Watch cases are hardly as complicated 
as are the works, but the factories making 
them are great institutions with most in- 
genious machinery in use. Thin sheets of 
metal are passed through machines which 
stamp out the disks of the right size, much 
as coins are stamped out in the mint. The 
disks are then passed through processes 
which form them to the right shape. The 



Things ti/e All Should Knotv 



361 



polishing and engraving are done by ina- 
chinerv, except when some special design 
is made to order. The filled cases which 
have become such a popular substitute for 
the more expensive cases of solid gold, are 
made by welding two thin sheets of gold 
on opposite sides of a sheet of steel, and 
then stamping the disks for the case out 
of this combination metallic plate. A case 
of great strength is thus obtained at mod- 
erate cost, with a surface of gold which 
will wear many years without deteriora- 
tion. 

MlfmORS AND THEIR MANU- 
FACTURE 

In the days when society and clothing 
were little appreciated, some heated man, 
in stooping to drink from a shady forest 
pool, saw a face in the water. After the 
first superstitious fear had been overcome he 
doubtless came again and again, each time 
with greater curiosity. Perhaps he also 
called the attention of his wife and daugh- 
ters to the phenomenon, and as soon as they 
discovered that their own faces looked up 
at them from the water, doubtless they 
began to think of rings for their noses. 
Thus vanity was born when the mirror was 
discovered. 

Since that time mechanical skill has been 
engaged in making portable substitutes for 
the shady pool, according to the model 
which nature provided. First the mirror 
was a polished piece of metal, usually 
bronze, and then it was silver or brass. 
Everyvvhere the early society belle went, 
she carried her mirror along with her in a 
little box which hung from her girdle. In 
«ome cases a slave was specially employed 



to keep it so highly polished that the re- 
flection would be perfect. This use of met- 
als continued until a comparatively recent 
time, and then some man who could not af- 
ford a piece of silver to look into devised a 
glass mirror. He found that the amoimt 
of metal required to make a thin coating on 
the glass was exceedingly small, and that 
its bright surface, being hermetically sealed 
by the presence of the covering glass, did 
not require any polishing. From that time 
to the present the glass mirror has pre- 
vailed, and the process of manufacturing 
has varied only in small details. 

In the first place a mirror requires the 
finest kind of glass, without spot or speck 
or "blow-holes." The best work is done with 
the plate glass manufactured in St. Gobain, 
France, and in numerous cities of Bel- 
gium. All the largest manufacturers oi 
mirrors use the foreign varieties in prefer- 
ence to those of American manufacture. 
The glass comes in huge plates, a quarter 
of an inch thick, ten or fifteen feet long, 
and half as broad. As many as a dozen 
plates are packed in a single box, display- 
ing numerous warnings to "handle with 
care." When the glass is taken out it is 
covered with dust and bits of excelsior, and 
the first thing that is done is to wash it clean 
with water. Then -a dozen of men who 
know just how to handle a great piece oi 
glass without subjecting any portion of it 
to a breaking strain carry it into the cut- 
ting room'. Here a workman in a long 
leather apron — usually a Frenchman who 
has had great experience in foreign mirror 
manufactories — blocks out an order on the 
plate, say two or three beveled mirrors for 
some lady's boudoir. A diamond-pointed 
instrument, with a strong and steady hand 
behind it, traces the lines of drawings on 



C62 



Things ^eOe All Should Knoiv 



the glass and cuts a groove so deep that the 
pieces easily crack oiit. 

Each of these oval pieces is then borne 
into another room, filled with the humming 
noises of rapidly-moving machinery. A 
thin-faced foreign workman, with his 
sleeves rolled up to the elbows, and a ragged 
apron draping him from chin to toes, picks 
it up and places its edge upon the side of a 
swiftly revolving iron wheel. From a large 
wooden tank, which strongly resembles a 
iSTew England ash-leach, a steady stream of 
sand and water flows upon the iron wheel, 
and in passing between it and the edge of 
the glass wears the bevel. The muddy 
water from the wheel is frequently thrown 
off in the swift revolutions, and works 
polka-dot designs all over the operator. But 
he is a skilled workman, and in his pride 
in getting the bevel on the glass exactly 
even — and he must depend wholly on his 
eye — ^he doesn't pay any attention to the 
flying mud. 

When the bevel is complete it resembles 
"mist" or ground glass, and is full of 
scratches and rough places. The next work- 
man in lorder smooths the bevel on a rapid- 
ly revolving emery wheel, which casts off 
a perfect shower of sparks. When it is as 
smooth as it can be made by this process it 
is passed to a third workman, who applies 
it to a fine grindstone from Newcastle, and 
in two minutes almost all traces of rough- 
ness have been removed. A small boy sits 
above the next wheel, which is made of 
wood, and daubs it with a wisp broom 
which he dips continually into a tub of 
Avater standing near at hand. He and the 
operator are both covered with the thin 
gray fluid which the wheel throws off. 

By the time the wooden wheel has been 
used, the bevel, to the ordinary eye, looks 



as smooth as the other parts of the glass. 
But to the trained eye of the master- 
workman, who has watched for flaws in 
the glass since he was a child, it is far 
from perfect, and he takes it in his hand 
and passes the bevel swiftly over a wheel, 
which is smeared with ordinary rouge, such 
as the actress uses to make blushes on her 
cheeks. It may be imagined that this part 
of the shop has been well treated with red — 
the men are all red, the floor is red, the 
tools are red and in passing through the 
department the visitor frequently acquires 
involuntary blushes. When the embryo 
mirror has passed the rouge wheel its bevel 
is perfect, and it is sent to an expert for 
inspection. If there are any remaining 
scratches on the glass they are marked with 
chalk, and a workman with an old rag 
smeared with rouge rubs away imtil it is 
smooth and fine. 

The glass is now ready for the silvering 
room — a tight, hot, well-lighted apartment 
in which the workmen wear as little cloth- 
ing as possible. An inclined plane of 
boards, which resembles a huge washboard 
turned on its side, fills one corner of the 
room, and on this the plates of glass are 
laid face downward. Over them the work- 
man spouts a stream of water, which 
cleans off the dirt. Then with another 
hose he plays on the glass with a sensitiz- 
ing solution of tin, the exact composition 
of which is a trade secret. The pieces of 
glass are next gathered up by a workman 
and are borne to the "bed." 

While it is not provided with pillows, the 
"bed" is complete in almost every other 
particular. It has a blanket which is strung 
across a frame about the size of an ordina- 
ry bed, and over this a cotton sheet is 
stretched. Underneath, so that its surface 



Things XOe All Should JLnoto 



363 



just touches the blanket, there is a large 
vat of water kept hot by steam pipes. The 
embryo mirrors are laid on the bed face 
down, and while they are yet wet with the 
sensitizing solution, a workman pours a di- 
luted compound of nitrate of silver, am- 
monia and tartaric acid over each glass. 
The exact composition of this solution is 
also a trade secret, each firm having its 
own methods for mixing and each is cer- 
tain that it cannot be beaten in results. 

Assisted by the heat from below and by 
the tin solution, the silver is quickly pre- 
cipitated on the glass. When the workman 
in charge thinks the coating is thick enough 
he pours off the surplus of the silver solu- 
tion, and the mirror — for it is no longer in 
an embryo state — is put into a warm "bed" 
to dry off. Here another workman takes 
the mirror and paints the back of it with 
a protective solution. Each firm has a dif- 
ferent color of paint and each paint is 
usually a composition differing from all the 
others, so that when a mirror is received for 
resilvering the manufacturer can usually 
tell just what firm originally sent it out. 
Frequently in special orders the backs of 
mirrors are covered with felt. 

The whole process in the silvering-room 
is wasteful of silver, and many devices have 
been used to preserve all the metal pos- 
sible. The blankets of the beds and the 
coverings of the tables where the nitrate of 
silver crystals are ground up, all go to the 
refineries for burning, and about 20 per 
cent of the silver is recovered. 

The whole process of making a beveled 
mirror does not take to exceed an hour by 
the present methods, and no stage is dan- 
gerous to the workmen. When mercury 
and tin-foil were used a number of years 
ago, the fumes killed many of the opera- 



tives and a mirror could not be completed 
under ten days. 

A large mirror is much more difficult to 
make than a small one, owing to the dif- 
ficulty of handling the somewhat fragile 
glass. The largest mirror ever made in 
Chicago — so say the manufacturers — was 
18^ feet long and 8 feet broad, and it was 
used in a liquor saloon. Two or three of 
the five large manufacturers of mirrors in 
Chicago use French glass almost entirely, 
for the reason, they say, that it is much 
finer in quality, and lacks the greenish tint 
which spoils American glass for the best 
trade. Chicago not only supplies the home 
market with mirrors but ships them all 
over the West and to Mexico, Canada and 
South America. 

Making plain mirrors adds about 20 per 
cent to the value of the plate glass, or in 
beveled work 30 per cent. For instance, 
a piece of plain French plate glass, 5x10 
feet, would cost about $75. A plain mir- 
ror of the same size would sell for $90. 

Si S S 

ART WORK IN BRASS 

Ornamental brass work has become an 
important industry since banks and other 
business offices have taken to plate glass, 
mosaic floors, statuary, stained glass over 
desks, and other decorative luxuries. This 
style of brass work is but the refinement of 
a commoner art, and the same men who 
make car-fittings, valves and brass work 
for steam engines and other machinery, can 
step into an "art brass" foundry and turn 
out high-grade work. The brass is cast in 
the foundry, cleaned, pickled, buffed, spun, 
turned, brazed, lacquered and polished in 
one shop as well as in another; the dif- 



364 



Thin^^ tOe All Should K.nobu 



ference is that finer material, daintier de- 
signs and forms and a higher finish are 
used in ornamental work. 

The foundry is the beginning. There 
the brass is roughly cast to form, and from 
thence it starts on its way to the finishing 
bench. Here the alloy of copper and tin, 
or copper and other metals which make 
brass, is cast in molding sand. The opera- 
tion is similar to that used in an iron 
foundry, particularly in an iron foundry 
which makes a specialty of light castings — 
or, as the molders call it, "snap flash" 
work. The brass molders work at benches 
— or, rather, troughs — in which is kept the 
molding-sand, which looks like rich black 
dirt and is so cohesive that when pinched 
between the thumb and finger the sand 
holds together and shows the mark of the 
pinch. The flask in which the sand is 
packed around the pattern is made of two 
frames, one fitting over the other. One 
frame has legs of wood, called dowels, and 
the other has holes in which these dowels 
fit, so that when the frames are brought 
together, one will remain over the other. 
The frames are made of four pieces of 
wood, fitted up with hinge-like corner- 
pieces, so that the frame can be unlocked 
and taken away from the sand without dis- 
turbing it. 

The molder lays one of the frames on a 
smooth board which goes from one side of 
his bench to the other, and fills it with 
sand. In the center and on top of the sand 
he lays the pattern, and presses it into the 
sand, and then fits the other frame over it. 
He shakes over the pattern some fine "part- 
ing" sand, and then fills the upper frame 
with molding sand, ramming it down hard 
with a couple of hard wood rammers, 
shaped something like dumb-bells, except 



that the ball on one end has a fiat surface, 
and on the other tapers to a blunt, chisel- « 

shaped point. After the sand is well 
pounded around the pattern, the molder 
scrapes the surplus sand from the top frame 
with a stick, and runs a pointed wire into 
the sand toward the pattern, thus provid- 
ing escapes for the gases which form when 
the molten metal is poured in. Then he 
turns over both frames, or the flask, and 
carefully lifts the bottom frame — now the 
top one — from the other, exposing the pat- 
tern imbedded in the sand. The pattern is 
withdrawn by driving a steel pin into the 
wood, or, if it is a white-metal pattern, 
by means of a screw pin made for the pur- 
pose, and the operation is aided by gently 
tapping the pattern as it leaves the sand. 

For hollow castings the cores are now put 
in place. A core is made of sand, paste 
and sometimes sour beer, rammed into 
molds and afterward baked in a large sheet- 
iron oven over a coke fire. Coremaking is 
generally done by boys, with perhaps two 
or three men for making the intricate cores. 
When the cores are laid in place in the hol- 
low space left by the pattern, the molder 
scoops out his "gates," or channels, through 
which the melted brass will find the mold, 
and then, placing the frames together, he 
takes off the woodwork and lays on the 
floor the short board with the block of sand 
on it. This is the way straight and core 
work is done. But for some purposes false 
core work is required, and this is, in minia- 
ture, what is done in making the mold for 
casting large bronze statues. 

Some patterns have undercuts which can- 
not be molded in sand as plain patterns are. 
They are made with false cores, and this 
work requires the greatest skill in the foun- 
dry department. An ordinary core gives 



Thing^s tOe Alt Should Knotv 



365 



form to the hollows of a casting, or makes 
the holes through a casting. A false core 
is a part of the mold built up separate 
from the mold proper, and as it is in small 
pieces it can be taken out without removing 
the pattern. Thus a bust can be buried in 
the sand, but its irregular form, its deep 
cuts and incurving depressions make it 
impossible to withdraw it from the sand 
without bringing part of the mold with it. 
The brass-molder gets around this by 
building up the mold out of sand packed so 
tight and hammered so close into the dif- 
ferent parts of the pattern that each part 
can be taken away, and when the pattern 
is removed can be properly assembled again 
to form the mold. Sometimes a dozen or 
more pieces are required to build up a false 
core. 

The brass is melted in crucibles, and the 
furnaces, usually below the floor level, are 
in a line, so that all the melting is done in 
one part of the foundry. With a pair of 
large tongs the crucible is lifted out of the 
bed and carried to the molds, and the metal 
is poured into the gate and thus fills the 
hollow in the sand. The castings which 
are to be polished are cleaned in water 
and "pickle" — acid and water — and are 
then buffed or burnished. Sometimes they 
are finished by being dipped in strong or 
weak solutions of nitric acid and water. 
For "bright dipping" the acid is strong and 
the brass casting is instantly withdrawn 
from the- bath, but when a dead finish is 
desired the acid solution is weaker and the 
casting is left in until a creaming color 
appears on the surface. In burnishing, the 
brass is brought to a high finish by being 
rubbed with polished steel tools, or it is 
held against buffing wheels, which are 
thick, soft wheels made of cotton. Kouge, 



a red polishing mixture, is put on the wheel 
and the high speed of the wheel polishes 
the brass. The buffing wheel cannot be 
used, however, on rough castings or ir- 
regular surfaces. The brilliancy and 
polish of brass which has been burnished 
or buffed is heightened and preserved by 
lacquer. This is put on the polished brass 
by girls, and the lacquer is dried in an 
oven. 

Brass is spun, stamped, pressed and 
drawn in the same manner as copper, gold 
and silver, and many of the trade secrets of 
goldsmiths and silversmiths are shared by 
brassworkers. 

BELLS AND HOW THEY ARE 
MADE 

Ever since the beginning of civilization 
men have been called to worship by the 
ringing of bells. As the strand of scarlet 
runs through all the ropes and hawsers 
belonging to -England's navy, so bells have 
marked the history of religion. Whenever 
the Jesuits of old established a mission, a 
bell was thought almost as important as a 
priest, and it was often brought from the 
foundries of Europe at great labor and ex- 
pense. To many a heathen mind the 
clangor from the chapel belfry must have 
been almost synonymous with the white 
man's God. Even to-day, as soon as a little 
pine church sprouts up on a village hill- 
side, and before the gloom of the mortgage 
which hangs over it has been dispelled, the 
"ladies' aid society" and the "young folks' 
helping hand" begin to raise money for a 
bell. 

But Christians are not the only bell- 
devotees. The Chinese and Japanese are 
among the greatest bellmakers of the world, 



366 



Things tOe Alt Should Knoief 



and they have worked to the glory of 
Buddha or Confucius. In some ways bells 
have grown to be more or less a symbol of 
religious ceremonials. 

Whether from these associations or from 
the fact that early castings were attended 
with much church ceremonial, the making 
of bells has something impressive about it. 
The manufactories are usually great, 
gloomy, smoky buildings, with no floor but 
the earth. One end is filled with the bell 
molds, and not farther away than the arm 
of a giant crane will stretch, stands the fur- 
nace in which the metal is melted. 

The whole process has been reduced to a 
marvelously exact science. Knowing one 
dimension and the tone of a bell, an expert 
can figure out all the other measurements 
and the weight. In fact, the main part of 
bell-making is done in a clean little room 
where a man sits busily at work soiling 
clean paper with figures and drawings. 

For instance, the thickness of a bell's 
edge is one-fifteenth of its diameter, and its 
height is twelve times its thickness. It 
must also be constructed of just the right 
thickness in its various parts, so that when 
tapped on the curve of the top it will yield 
a note one octave above its real key note; 
when tapped one-quarter of the distance 
from the top it will yield a note which is 
one-fifth of an octave, and when tapped 
five-eighths of the distance from the top it 
will yield one-third of an octave. Where 
the clapper strikes, all of these three will 
sound simultaneously, thus yielding the 
consonant or key note of the bell. 

These are exact rules, and they have to 
be carefully reduced to dimensions. Be- 
sides this, the proportions of the metal to 
the size of the bell must be calculated. Cop- 
per and tin are used for large bells, but the 



mixture varies widely, and almost every 
manufacturer has a rule of his own. About 
four parts of copper are ordinarily used 
with each part of tin. 

When the designs have been made for a 
bell they go to the pattern-maker, whose 
haunt in his little workshop at one side of 
the foundry is a veritable museum of tools 
and patterns. The workman, after careful- 
ly making the measurements on a spruce 
plank, cuts out two long strips of wood, one 
of them just the contour of the inside of 
the projected bell, and the other the con- 
tour of the outside. This work must be 
very careful and exact. By the time it is 
completed the leather-aproned men at the 
other end of the foundry have made the 
basin for the mold. It is constructed in the 
earth, and consists mainly of firebrick and 
clay. At its center a stout post'is planted, 
perfectly pliimb, and just the height of the 
proposed bell. The two contour pieces from 
the pattern room are now pivoted to the 
post in such a way that they will swing 
around like the free leg of a compass. 

In the center of the basin and around the 
post the workmen build a little furnace of 
brick, so large that it almost reaches the 
sweep of the inside contour leg of the com- 
pass. It is then pieced out on top with fire- 
clay, until it exactly conforms to the sweep 
of the contour leg. After having been made 
very smooth the little furnace, which is just 
the size of the inside of the bell, is allowed 
to harden for a time. This is the core. 
Then grease is applied and workmen again 
plaster on the clay until it reaches and is 
swept smooth by the upper contour leg. 
This covering of clay is exactly the size 
and shape of the projected bell. Any de- 
sigTis or inscriptions are now worked in re- 
verse order on the '^sham-bell" and plugged 



Things tOe All Should Knoto 



361 



in with was. When it is dry it, in turn, is 
smeared with grease, and another layer of 
clay, called the mantle or "cope," is packed 
on roughly, a hole being left in the top 
through which the molten metal can be 
poured. 

After having been hardened by drying 
for a few days the whole mass is caked by 
building a hot fire ia the interior furnace. 
The wax in the inscriptions and the gTcase 
vaporize and pass off. The mantle or the 
mold for the outer part of the bell can now 
be readily grappled and lifted off. "NMien 
the next layer or "sham-bell" is removed 
and the mantle replaced the space left be- 
tween it and the core furnishes the bell- 
mold. Little holes are left in the bottom 
of the mold for the escape of gas during 
the pouring. Everything is now ready for 
the gi-eatest event of the whole process. 

In the furnace the great mass of bell- 
metal is already bubbling away, as liquid 
as water, and the furnace-stokers below are 
perspiring with their exertions. Outside 
and at a safe distance stand the spectators, 
with the glare of light from the furnace 
reddening their faces. 

Then the master-workman, calm and 
slow-voiced in spite of his anxiety and re- 
sponsibility, steps forward and waves his 
hand. Instantly the throat of the furnace 
opens and a molten stream of metal, hissing 
and spitting, gurgles out into a great earth- 
en crucible. As it reaches the bottom, 
which has been previously littered with 
charcoal, a great burst of green flame spurts 
a score of feet into the air. The whole ef- 
fect is indescribably gorgeous. The faces 
and the bare, brawny shoulders of the work- 
men gleam pale against the smoky sides of 
the furnace. The grimy rafters overhead 
send back the shower of sparks, and even 



the glowing mouth of the furnace pales be- 
fore the brilliancy of the flame. The men 
rush forward and throw small pieces of 
broken bells into the crucible to cool the 
metal a little, and they are melted like 
icicles in a cauldron of boiling water. 

It takes great skill to tell just when the 
molten metal is of the right temperature to 
pour. When this moment has arrived the 
huge arm of the crane reaches forward and 
lifts the crucible in the air and swing's it 
out until it is just over the mold. Then 
there is a pause. The visitors are silent, 
holding their breaths, and the workmen, 
like the hunter who pauses with game in 
view and his finger on the trigger, stand 
motionless, their eyes intently fixed on the 
glowing crucible suspended high above 
them. 

The work of Aveeks may be completed 
beautifully or ruined in an instant. It is 
like the supreme moment in a tragedy. 

Then the heavy silence is broken by the 
master's voice, and the crucible is slowly 
tipped and its molten contents stream 
downward into the mold. A man stands 
near igTtiting the gas, which belches out as 
the metal goes in. If it is not destroyed it 
may leave blowholes in the bell, thus ren- 
dering it useless. At last the metal over- 
flows the mouth of the mold and then the 
crucible is tipped back. The pouring is 
complete. 

Then the mold is left for several weeks 
to grow cold and shrink, because if broken 
open at once the bell would cool more rap- 
idly on the outside than on the inside, arid 
would burst. The moment of breaking off 
the clay mantle is also one of anxiety. It 
discloses whether or not the work has been 
successful. 

When entirely extricated and still in its 



368 



Things tOe All Should Knottf 



"maiden state," as it is called, the bell is 
tested, and if it gives out a single pure tone 
it is regarded as a perfect cast. The manu- 
f actorj which can turn out the largest pro- ' 
portion of "maiden" bells is the most suc- 
cessful. If the tone is not pure the bell 
can sometimes be tuned by filing away the 
parts of the inside surface, but it can never 
be made equal to a "maiden." 

The largest bell ever cast was the cele- 
brated "king of bells," as it is called by the 
Russians, in Moscow. It was made under 
the orders of the Empress Anne in 1733, 
and at the time of its casting a great relig- 
ious ceremony was held, during which hun- 
dreds of nobles threw their silver and gold 
jewelry into the furnace. The bell meas- 
ures 22 feet 8 inches across the mouth, 19 
feet 3 inches in height and its thickness ai 
the base, where the clapper would strike, is 
23 inches. Its estimated weight is from 
400,000 to 440,000 pounds. A nearly tri- 
angular piece of metal about 6 feet high 
and 7 feet across the base, weighing 11 
tons, is broken out from the rim. There 
has been much discussion as to whether it 
was ever rung or not. Be that as it may, 
the bell now stands within the Kremlin, 
where it was originally placed, to serve as 
a chapel for religious exercises. Its value 
on account of the gold and silver which it 
contains is said to be very great. 

The largest bell in America is in the ca- 
thedral of Montreal. Its weight is 28,000 
pounds. The old "liberty bell," which 
rang when the Declaratiorl of Independence 
was signed, weighs only 1,500 pounds. 
Early Chinese bells were nearly square, 
and were welded out of different pieces. 

The Mexicans make bells out of clay, 
baked like pottery, in the form of women, 
armS; head and skirte. 



HOW ARTESIAN WELLS ARE 
BORED 

Artesian wells are changing some of the 
dry, arid tracts of the west into the best 
farming lands of the country. The water 
brought sometimes a thousand feet from 
under the surface, is conveyed, by irrigat- 
ing ditches, to the parched earth, rich in 
all that goes with good producing soil ex- 
cept water, and when that great need has 
been supplied abundant crops will result. 
In large cities, equipped with extensive and 
modern waterworks systems, thousands of 
artesian wells supply industrial plants with 
water, and in the long run save thousands 
of dollars of water taxes to the manufac- 
turers. 

In some wells the pressure of water is 
sufficient to send it to the surface, but from 
the majority of wells the water is pumped 
by steam pumps or windmills. The man 
who bores an artesian well works under a 
great disadvantage, for he is in the dark 
as soon as his boring and driving tool is 
well under the surface of the ground. His 
drill points, casing, rods, sand pump, 
reamer or any one of the dozen tools and 
appliances he uses, may be broken hun- 
dreds of feet under ground, l»ut he goes to 
work to extract the broken tool or dislodge 
the piece that is stuck as calmly as though 
it were just at hand. 

The ingenious devices used by the well 
borer for repairing damage and overcom- 
ing obstacles, are the result of the hard, 
exasperating, practical, expensive expe- 
rience of hundreds of well borers for many 
years. The business of boring artesian 
Avells, drive wells, oil, gas and other wells 
made by sinking a line of pipe, has devel- 
oped into a distinct branclj of hydraulic 



Things tOe Alt Should Kjnoto 



369 



engineering, for water is one of the most 
important tools used bj the up-to-date well 
borer. In fact, some holes are literally 
pumped out, and the pipe casing sinks in- 
to the ground without a blow or a shove. 

In driving a tube well on a farm either 
a horse-power machine or a portable steam 
engine is used as power. A hole is bored 
for some distance and this hole is cased 
with an iron pipe which is driven into it. 
The well-driving apparatus consists of a 
drill screwed to the bottom of the drill rod, 
which is in sections, so that the rod can 
be lengthened by screwing sections to- 
gether. 

The drill rods are made of iron pipe, and 
every thirty feet or so in the hollow drill 
rod is a valve which opens from beneath. 
In the drill is a hole, and as the drill is 
lifted and dropped alternately by the 
mechanism on the ground, water is poured 
into the well. This makes a ''slush" of the 
pounded, crushed earth, clay, gravel or 
stone, and it enters the drill rod through 
the hole in the drill. 

When the drill is lifted, of course the 
rods, with the water and slush in them, 
are raised. The drill is dropped suddenly, 
and as the heavy iron and steel falls more 
rapidly than the slush and water, the slush 
passes into the next section above through 
a valve, which closes when the drill is again 
raised. In this manner the drillings are 
lifted to the surface and are there dis- 
charged. 

The drill is lifted and dropped, crush- 
ing its way deeper and deeper into the 
earth, and as it sinks the iron casing is 
driven down after it. A pump is always 
attached to the head of the apparatus, and 
when water is reached the pump is started, 
*nd the sand in the gravel bed is pumped 



out, forming a reservoir in the clean gravel. 
This method of sinking a well is rapid and 
inexpensive. 

An improvement on this is the "rolling" 
and "jetting" process. This is a combina- 
tion of the principles of hydraulic mining, 
as practiced in California, and of the dia- 
mond drill without the diamonds. In 
hydraulic mining a stream of water, forced 
from the nozzle at a great pressure, is di- 
rected against the bank, and the earth is 
washed away just as furrows are cut into 
the sod on a lawn by the jet of water from 
a garden hose. 

A diamond drill cuts its way into the 
earth, clay and rock, by revolving a drill- 
point studded with black diamonds. In 
the rolling and jetting system used in sink- 
ing artesian wells, the cutter is a section 
of pipe on the lower end of which teeth 
are cut. As this is revolved in the ground 
by the machine which grips the pipe and 
turns it, jets of water are forced down in- 
side of the pipe. The water rushes out 
from under the cutter's teeth and returns 
to the surface of the ground on the outside 
of the pipe. This returning water cushion 
between the pipe and the earth lessens the 
friction and gives the casing an easy rota- 
tion. 

N^aturally the hollow cutter carries a core 
of the material through which it forces its 
way, and the well-borer utilizes this core, 
if it be of clay, to build up a clay wall for 
the bore when it passes through quicksand. 
If there be not enough clay in the core for 
this purpose, he puts some in the pipe, and 
the water carries it down and up, packing 
it in the quicksand. If a material is met 
which the cutter finds difficulty in boring, 
broken emery rock, iron ore, flint sand and 
other abraaives are sent down through the 



370 



Things te}e Alt Should K.nobu 



pipe. For material too hard to be cut by 
the steel cutter, a cutter set with black dia- 
monds is used. A modification of this 
hydraulic-cutting combination is a steel 
''paddy" drill, which is carried down with 
the casing and cutter. This apparatus per- 
mits the use of all the appliances without 
taking out or letting down other tools. A 
drill is attached to the end of a hollow drill 
rod which goes down inside of the casing. 
The rod and casing have independent move- 
ments, so that the drill can work ahead of 
the casing, or the casing can cut its way 
without the drill, both of them aided by 
the water sent down from above. 

Enormous augers which bore holes from 
eight to thirty inches in diameter are used 
to sink shallow wells. It is conceded that 
wells more than 60 feet deep should be 
bored with the well-driving machinery and 
not with earth augers. The huge auger is 
fixed to the lower end of a vertical shaft, 
which is connected with the proper mechan- 
ism to twist it around. In the use of 
horse power the auger shaft is attached to 
the sweep to which the horse is hitched. 
Some of the augers are real augers, others 
are bucket-shaped, with cutting edges, and 
still others are claw-shaped, but they all 
cut out the hole, and when full of earth are 
lifted to the surface, emptied and sent down 
to corkscrew their way deeper. 

Such wells are cased with vitrified, 
glazed or terracotta tiling, galvanized pipe, 
etc. If the auger, which is not made for 
stone work, meets a rock or a boulder, a 
drill is sent down the hole and the rock 
is broken or bored through. If it is a loose 
stone it is lifted from the hole, provided it 
is not too large for the bore, by "screw 
tongs," "ram's-hom" rock extractors and 
other devices of like nature. 



A sand j)ump is a hollow cylinder of 
iron, fitted with a hinged bottom which 
opens inside of the cylinder. When it is 
dropped into the sand the door is forced up 
and the sand, when inside, holds it closed 
so that the material can be lifted out. 

DISCOVERIES IN MEDICINE AND 

THE PROLONGATION 

OF LIFE 

Dr. John Pot came to Virginia in 1610, 
and Dr. Samuel Fuller came over in the 
Mayflower in 1620. They have the dis- 
tinction of being the first white "medicine ■ 
men" within the present limits of the 
United States. An attentive schoolboy 
twelve years of age doubtless now knows 
as much of the genuine principles of health 
as they did, and he is a dull student if he 
does not know a great deal more of the 
structure of the body. 

At the close of the Revolutionary "War 
there were about 3,500 medical practition- A 
ers in the United States, and only about S 
400 of these had graduated from any school 
of medicine. There were then only two 
medical colleges in this country, and they 
had conferred only 51 degrees. So few 
people patronized the doctor that usually 
he made his living at some other work and 
practiced medicine as a pastime. 

The theory and practice of medicine have 
since then advanced to a high position 
among the sciences by the aid of important 
discoveries made in kindred sciences. The 
sufferings of the human race have been 
decreased more than can be estimated, and 
the happiness of mankind has been ad' 
vanced in proportion through medical in^ 
vestigation and prophylactic discoveries 
with their allied sciences. A few of the 



Thin^^ ^eOe All Should Knotef 



371 



more important general discoveries may be 
thus mentioned: 

Lady Mary Montagu brought the knowl- 
edge of inoculation against smallpox from 
Constantinople, and Dr. Jenner, in 1798, 
taking it up as a scientific matter, brought 



age died, while more than half of the others 
were left badly disfigured. In contrast, the 
greatest epidemic of smallpox in the nine- 
teenth century, that of 1872 and 1873, at- 
tacked less than five per cent in any city. 
In Germany, where vaccination is rigidly 




LABORATORY WORK IN A MEDICAL COLLEGE. 



vaccination into general use. In Europe, 
previous to the introduction of this preven- 
tive, at frequent intervals, from one-fourth 
to one-half of the population of the great 
cities were attacked by smallpox and 95 
per cent of the children under ten years of 



required, the deaths from smallpox are less 
than one-tenth of those of the surrounding 
countries, where vaccination is not thor- 
oughly done. 

Auscultation, or listening to the sounds 
produced in the chest by the heart and 



372 



Thin^^ tae/e Alt Should KnoUf 



lungs, as invented by Laennec in 1819, 
revolutionized the treatment of diseases of 
the internal organs of the body. 

Dr. J. Y, Simpson of Connecticut made 
the greatest discovery of the nineteenth 
century in its application to surgery, by 



The minor discoveries that alone would 
mark an epoch in almost any science, such 
as antitoxin, which has reduced the mor- 
tality from diphtheria fully 95 per cent, 
with the discoveries of Pasteur and Koch 
to avert hydrophobia and tuberculosis, are 




APPLICATION OF THE LIGHT CURE IN A LONDON HOSPITAL. 



making practical the use of drugs to deaden 
pain. Anesthetics thus did away with the 
horrors of surgical operations on sufFering 
human beings. 

Chemical cleanliness from all destructive 
germs in surgical work is the result of the 
discoveries of Joseph Lister of England. 
It is estimated that through his discoveries 
in the use of antiseptics the death rate from 
infections of wounds has been decreased at 
least one-half. 



too numerous to mention except in an ex 
tended treatise on the subject. 

SPECIAL CULTS AND CURES 

Innumerable specifics have meanwhile 
become popular, to contribute to general 
practice whatever they contained of value, 
and then fall into disuse. 

The food cure is an exclusive diet of 
milk, grapes, ind farinaceous vegetables 



Things XOe AH Should Knokv 



373 



rluring anj period of disturbance iu health. 

The earth cure consists in immersing the 
body in mud or dry earth during periods 
of soreness or pain. 

The water cure is the use of water at 
different temperatures either in immersion, 
douches in solid streams, or by the body 
being packed in wet sheets. The steam or 
hot air baths are used in the same connec- 
tion, with vigorous rubbing with coarse 
towels. 

The air cure, for rheumatism, paralysis, 
and similar diseases, is also known as the 
vacuum treatment. It is given by manipu- 
lating the limbs or parts of the body under 
or with vacuum pumps or disks. 

The oxygen or ozone cure requires 
the patient suffering debilitation or lung 
troubles to live in an atmosphere specially 
prepared for him in an air-tight room or 
by the use of special inhalers. 

The cure from sun-air baths is applied 
by exposure of the skin to the direct rays 
of the sun in dry, still air. 

Breathing methods require certain peri- 
ods each day of deep chest expansion where 
the air, if possible, is dry and pure. 

Cures by electricity are effected by keep- 
ing the diseased parts directly in a current 
of electricity as powerful as may not be 
painful, for a given time. 

The movement cure is a mechanical as- 
sistance given to the vital forces kno-rni as 
voluntary and involuntary. It is claimed 
that a violent agitation of parts that are in 
a state of torpor arouses and stimulates the 
circulation through them, both of blood and 
nervous force. Machinery is used to give 
vibration, which is said to produce heat and 
consequent development of energy in the 
parts. 

The lift cure is accomplished by the 



action of standing erect, knees bent three 
or four inches, upon a platform resting on 
spiral springs. The lifter grasps a cross 
bar connected with the springs, adjusted by 
weights. The operation is in straightening 
the bent knees, while otherwise remaining 
erect, thus lifting the weight, and breathing 
deeply and rhythmically with each move- 
ment. 

Mind cures, faith cures, and the like, 
consist in mentally separating one's self 
from the disease and giving it no place in 
the system. 

The rest cure is self-explanatory as to 
treatment. It consists of a complete cessa- 
tion of mental and physical action for given 
periods under the most comfortable condi- 
tions, or as isolated as possible from all dis- 
turbance. The latter has been called the 
wilderness cure. 

SYSTEMS OF MEDICAL TREAT- 
MENT 

Hahnemann, when he invented Homeo- 
pathy, on the principle that like cures like, 
gave the name Allopathy to the earlier 
school that cured on the theory of revul- 
sion, that is of substituting one disease for 
another, as practiced by Paracelsus; and 
he also gave the name Enantiopathy to the 
doctrine that a thing is destroyed by its 
contraries, as practiced by Galen. 

Hydropathy was the name given later 
to the school which effected its cures by the 
various uses of water, as practiced by the 
Rosicrucians. 

The Eclectic school, as the name sug- 
gests, claims to take the best from all sys- 
tems, but it relied mainly in the beginning 
on decoctions and extracts of herbs. 



374 



Things tOe AH ShGuld KjioHf 



Osteopathy lias firmly established itself 
in many places, and depends for its cures 
on the manipulation of the bony structures 
of the body. There are numerous minor 
systems, but the great discoveries of the last 
few years have almost completely obliter- 
ated the former dividing lines of the older 
medical schools. Physicians,, like other 
thinking men, are becoming more tolerant 



ELEMENTS OE PHYSICAL 
HEALTH 

The assertion made for so many genera- 
tions that cleanliness is next to godliness 
may not be as persuasive as if we were to 
say that cleanliness is the first law of health 
and long life. That many persons have 
attained extreme old age without regard to 




OPERATING ROOM IN A GREAT DENTAL COLLEGE. 



of varying opinions and methods. The best 
of them frankly admit that good is found 
in all schools of practice, and are glad to 
make use of whatever discoveries aid in the 
heaJiijg of bodily ills and infirmities. So 
the entire body of medical men, in the 
highest sense of the phrase are becoming 
eclectic. No longer do they refuse to con- 
sul C with their rivals, and the public thus 
is permitted the benefits of all progress. 



cleanliness is not very weighty proof that 
cleanliness is not one of the most goodly 
assistants to longevity. 

Since there are2,800outlets to the square 
inch all over the body, making a personal 
sewage system of twenty-eight miles of 
pipes, this effort of nature to get rid of its 
waste matter should be fully sustained by 
baths and clean clothing. Fifteen minutes 
is long enough for any bath, and the water 



I 



Things tSe/e All Should Kjnoha 



375 



should be warm, tepid or cold, according as 
the person may find it most enjoyable and 
beneficial. No absolute rule can apply to 
all persons and all conditions. 

During fatigue and while the stomach is 
digesting food, there should be no disturb- 
ance of the temperature of the skin, nor 
should a bath be taken within an hour or 
two after a meal. 

E'othing quickens the functions of the 
body in a more harmonious manner than 
suitable exercise. It should always stop 
short of fatigue, and never extend to vio- 
lence. Exercise of a general nature equal- 
izes the circulation and aids the assimila- 
tion of nutriment. It prevents congestions 
and torpor of all kinds. It is thus of ani- 
mating service to the mind, and may be 
regarded as the most important element in 
the promotion of long life. 

Sleep is rest, and rest is the necessary 
alternate in al energy. Comfort is the 
first condition of sleep, after the suspen- 
sion of action and thought. Sleep is the 
most restorative when it is the most com- 
plete suspension of all energy within body 
and brain. By systematic practice one can 
thus compose the mind at will and the 
healthy person should be able to fall asleep 
within five minutes of the first attempt. 
Cessation of thought without sleep may 
even become complete enough to be com- 
plete cessation of image-making, and there- 
fore a fully unobstructed rest. 

One who has a natural appetite and a 
normal organism, should never swallow 
anything that is in any way distasteful, nor 
should he ever impose any labor upon di- 
gestion that should be performed by mas- 
tication. 

Usually in any derangement of the sys- 
tem, and most derangements come from 



some torpidity in the digestive organs, the 
first effect is a disinclination toward food. 
This is nature's warning that the digestive 
apparatus is in no condition to do its work 
and the warning should be heeded. 

The organs that take up the nutriment 
from the food can only use so much, and 
an excessive quantity of food only dulls 
their vitality. In times of famine those 
die of starvation first who have been the 
heaviest eaters. Those whose habit it has 
been to eat little can extract more nourish- 
ment from the food eaten than the others 
are able to do, and so suffer less. 

THE PULSE IN HEALTH 

The frequency of the pulse varies slightly 
according to temperaments, but the follow- 
ing is regarded as the average : 

New born infants from 140 to 130 

During first year, from 130 " 115 

During second year, from 115 " 100 

From seventh to fourteenth year, 

from 90 " 85 

From fourteenth to twenty-first year, 

from 85 " 75 

From twenty-first to sixtieth year, 

from 75 " 70 

In old age, from 70 " ^0 

CONTAGIOUS AND ERUPTIVE 
DISEASES 

It will often relieve a mother's anxiety 
to know how long after a child has been 
exposed to a contagious disease there is 
danger that the disease has been contracted. 
The following table gives the period of inr 
cubation — or anxious period — ^and other 



376 Things tC/e All Should Kjioto 

Information concerning the more import- direct inflation can be tried. Take a deep 

ant diseases: breath and breathe it forcibly into the 

Symptoms mouth of patient, compress the chest to ex- 

pear w^ith-' P^^^ *^^ ^^^ ^"^^ repeat the operation. 7. 

Disease. in. Patient is Infectious. Don't give up! People have been saved 

Chicken-pox.. 14 days Until all scabs have r, ? c .• . ■ rv 

fallen off. after hours of patient, vigorous effort. 8. 

Diphtheria.... 2 " 14 days after disap- When breathing begins take patient into a 

pearance of mem- ^^^xm bed, give warm drinks, or spirits in 

Measles 14 " *Until scaling and teaspoonfuls, fresh air and quiet. 

cough have ceased. „ j a u r^ -xi i • 

Mumps 10-22 " 14 days from com- Burns and bcalds. Cover with cooking 

^..^^ , ,, .. -.^rf^"'^?*- soda and lay wet cloths over it. Whites of 

Rotheln 14 10-14 days from com- •'. 

mencement. eggs and olive oil. Olive or linseed oil, 

Scarlet fever. 4 " UntU^aU scaling has p^^-^^ ^^ ^-^^^^ ^.^j^ ^^^^^ ^^ ^^^.^.^^^ 

Small-pox 12-17 " Until all scabs have Lightning. Dash cold water over a per- 

fallen off. ■ "^ ^ 

Typhoid fever 11 " Until diarrhoea ceases son struck. 

Whooping tSix weeks from be- ^^ns/ro^-e. Loosen clothing. Get patient 

cough 14 " gmnmg to whoop. . * ^ 

. . , into shade, and apply ice-cold water to head. 

*In measles the patient is infectious three _J^ 

days before the eruption appears. Mad Dog or bnafce Bite. Tie cord tight 

tin whooping-cough the patient is infectious -^ ^ound Suck the wound and cauter- 

during the primary cough which may be three ^^^^^ wouna. DUCK tne wouna ana cauter 

weeks before the whooping begins. ize with caustic or white-hot iron at once, 

. ^ ■ or cut out adjoining parts with a sharp 
knife. 

FIRST AID TO THE INJURED— Venomous Insects' Stings, etc. Apply 

WHAT TO DO IN EMER- weak ammonia, oil, salt water or iodine. 

GENCIES Fainting. Place flat on back ; allow fresh 

Drowning. 1. Loosen clothing, if any. air and sprinkle with water. 

2. E'mpty lungs of water by laying body Tests of Death. Hold mirror to mouth, 

on its stomach and lifting it by the middle If living, moisture will gather. Push pin 

so that the head hangs down. Jerk the body into flesh. If dead the hole will remain, if 

a few times. 3. Pull tongue forward, alive it will close up. 

using handkerchief, or pin with string, if Cinders in the Eye. Roll soft paper up 

necessary. 4. Imitate motion of respira- like a lamp lighter and Avet the tip to re- 

tion by alternately compressing and ex- move, or use a medicine dropper to draw 

panding the lower ribs about twenty times it out. Eub the other eye. 
a minute. Alternately raising and lower- 
ing the arms from the sides up above the 

head will stimulate the action of the lungs. ANTIDOTES FOR POISONS 

Let it be done gently but persistently. 5. First. Send for a physician. 

Apply warmth and friction to extremities. Second. Induce vomiting, by tickling 

6. By holding tongue forward, closing the throat with feather or finger. Drink hot 

nostrils and pressing the "Adam's apple" water or strong mustard and water. S's^al- 

back (so a? ■^ close entrance to stomach), low sweet oil or whites of ©ggz 



Things XOe All Should K.notef 



377 



Acms asrc antidote for alkalies, and vice 
versa. 

SPECIAL POISONS AND ANTI- 
DOTES 

Acids, muriatic, oxalic, acetic, sulphuric 
(oil of vitriol), nitric (aqua-fortis). 
Soap-suds, magnesia, lime-water. 

Prussic acid. Ammonia in water. Dash 
water in face. 

Carbolic acid. Flour and water, muci- 
laginous drinks. 

Alkalies. Such as potash, Ije, hartshorn, 
ammonia. Vinegar or lemon juice in water. 

Arsenic, rat poison, paris green. Milk, 
raw eggs, sweet oil, lime-water, flour and 
water. 

Bug poison, lead, saltpetre, corrosive sub- 
limate, sugar of lead, blue vitriol. Whites 
of eggs or milk in large doses. 

Chloroform, chloral, ether. Dash cold 
water on head and chest. Artificial respira- 
tion. Piece of ice in rectum. ISTo chemical 
antidote. 

Carbonate of soda, copperas, cobalt. 
Soap-suds and mucilaginous drinks. 

Iodine, antimony, tartar emetic. Starch 
and water. Astringent infusions. Strong 
tea, tannin. 

Mercury and its salts. Whites of eggs, 
milk, mucilages. 

Nitrate of silver, lunar caustic. Salt and 
water. 

Opium, morphine, laudanum, paregoric, 
soothing powders, or syrups. Strong coffee, 
hot bath. Keep awake and moving at any 
cost. 

Strychnine, tincture of nux vomica. 
Mustard and water, sulphate of zinc. Ah- 
solute quiet. Plug the ears. 



RULES IN CASE OF FIRE 

Crawl on the floor. The clearest air is 
the lowest in the room. Cover head with 
woolen wrap, wet if possible. Cut holes 
for the eyes. Don't get e^scited. 

Ex-Chief Hugh Bonner, of the ITew 
York Fire Department, gives the following 
rules applying to houses, flats, hotels, etc. : 

Familiarize yourself with thfe location of 
hall windows and natural escapes. Learn 
the location of exits to roofs of adjoining 
buildings. Learn the position of all stair- 
ways, particularly the top landing and 
scuttle to the roof. Should you hear a cry 
of "fire," and columns of smoke fill the 
rooms, above all Iceep cool. Keep the doors 
of rooms shut. Open windows from the 
top. Wet a towel, stuff it in the mouth, 
breathe through it instead of nose, so as not 
to inhale smoke. Stand at window and get 
benefit of outside air. If room fills with 
smoke keep close to floor and crawl along by 
the wall to the window. 

Do not jump unless the blaze behind 
is scorching you. Do not even then if the 
firemen with scaling ladders are coming up 
the building or are near. Kever go to the 
roof, unless as a last resort and you know 
there is escape from it to adjoining build- 
ings. In big buildings fire always goes to 
the top. Do not jump through flame within 
a building without first covering the head 
with a blanket or heavy clothing and gaug- 
ing the distance. Don't get excited ; try to 
recall the means of exit, and if any firemen 
are in sight don't jump. 

If the doors of each apartment, espe- 
cially in the lower part of the house, were 
closed every night before the occupants re- 
tired there would not be such a rapid spread 
of flames. 



378 



Things tOe All Should Knoto 



ACCIDENTS IN THE UNITED 
STATES 

In 1900 there were 2,550 railway em- 
ployes killed and 39,643 injured; there 
were 249 passengers killed and 4,128 in- 
jured; in other accidents 5,066 persons 
were killed and 6,549 injured, so that the 
total casualties for the year were 7,865 and 
50,320 respectively. 

LIFE AND DEATH RATES 

This table shows how many out of 10,- 
000 persons die annually at each year up to 
104. It is used by all life insurance com- 
panies in their computations of risk, premi- 
ums, etc. 





No. 


No. 




No. No. 


Year. 


Alive. 


Deaths. 


Year. 


Alive. Deaths. 


At birth 




1,539 


35... 


... 5,362 


55 


1 


8,461 


682 


36... 


... 5,307 


66 


2 


7,779 


505 


37... 


... 5,251 


57 


3 


7,274 


276 


38... 


... 5,194 


58 


4 


6,998 


201 


39... 


... 5,136 


61 


5 


6,797 


121 


40... 


... 5,075 


66 


6 


6,676 


82 


41... 


... 5,009 


69 


7..... 


6,594 


58 


42... 


... 4,940 


71 


8 


6,536 


43 


43... 


... 4,869 


71 


9 


6,493 


33 


44... 


... 4,798 


71 


10 


6,460 


29 


45... 


... 4,727 


70 


11..... 


6,431 


31 


46... 


... 4,657 


69 


12 


6,400 


32 


47... 


... 4,588 


67 


13 


6,368 


33 


48... 


... 4,521 


63 


14 


6,335 


35 


49... 


... 4,458 


61 


15 


6,300 


39 


50... 


... 4,397 


59 


16 


6,261 


42 


51... 


... 4,338 


62 


17 


6,219 


43 


52... 


... 4,276 


65 


18 


6,176 


43 


53... 


... 4,211 


68 


19 


6,133 


43 


54... 


... 4,143 


70 


20 


6,090 


43 


55... 


... 4,073 


73 


21 


6,047 


42 


56... 


... 4,000 


76 


22..... 


6,005 


42 


57... 


... 3,924 


82 


23..... 


5,963 


42 


58..,, 


... 3,842 


93 


24 


5,921 


42 


59... 


... 3,749 


106 


25 


5,879 


43 


60... 


... 3,633 


122 


26 


5,836 


43 


61... 


... 3,521 


126 


27 


5,793 


45 


62... 


... 3,395 


127 


28 


5,748 


50 


63... 


... 3,268 


125 


29 


5,698 


56 


64... 


. .. 3,143 


125 


SO 


5,642 


57 


65... 


... 3,018 


124 


81 


5,585 


57 


66... 


... 2,894 


123 


32 


5,528 


56 


67... 


... 2,771 


123 


S3 


5,472 


55 


68 . . . 


... 2,648 


123 


34 


5,417 


55 • 


69... 


... 2,525 


124 





No. 


No. 


1 


No. 


No. 


Year. 


Alive. 


Deaths. 


Year. 


Alive. Deaths. 


70.... 


. 2,401 


124 


88.. 


... 232 


51 


71.... 


. 2,277 


134 


89.. 


... 181 


39 


72.... 


. 2,143 


146 


90.. 


... 142 


37 


73.... 


. 1,997 


156 


91.. 


... 105 


30 


74.... 


. 1,841 


166 


92.. 


75 


21 


75.... 


. 1,675 


160 


93.. 


... 54 


14 


76.... 


. 1,515 


156 


94.. 


40 


10 


77.... 


. 1,359 


146 


95.. 


30 


7 


78.... 


. 1,213 


132 


96.. 


23 


5 


79.... 


. 1,081 


128 


97.. 


18 


4 


80.... 


. 953 


116 


98.. 


14 


3 


81.... 


. 837 


112 


99.. 


11 


2 


82.... 


. 725 


102 


100.. 


9 


2 


83.... 


. 623 


94 


101.. 


7 


2 


84.... 


. 529 


84 


102.. 


5 


2 


85.... 


. 445 


78 


103.. 


3 


2 


86.... 


. 367 


71 


104.. 


1 


1 


87.... 


. 296 


64 









CREMATION 

The burning to ashes of the bodies of 
the dead is one of the most ancient of cus- 
toms, in all countries which have had an 
ancient civilization. The prejudice against 
cremation is but one Jewish influence 
among the many influences that through 
the scriptures have had such a powerful 
effect upon the feelings and habits of the 
civilized world. 

The poems of Homer show that the cus- 
tom of burning the dead was common dur- 
ing the Trojan war, more than a thousand 
years before Christ. Almost every country- 
having a long history has, one time or an- 
other in its career, very generally practiced 
cremation. Evidences show that it has usu- 
ally partaken of a religious character. 

The use of the tomb was forever hal- 
lowed among Christians by the method of 
Christ's burial. The belief in the resur- 
rection of the material body from the grave 
caused cremation to be looked upon with 
abhorrence among all those who held to 
that doctrine. 

The cremation of the body of the poet 
Shelley and that of his friend Williams, 



Things rOe All Should Knotv 



379 



in 1822, drew forth a general discussion of 
the subject, especially among the learned 
men of Germany and Italy. 

In 1874 the closed receptacle -was first 
used, and the second person to be cremated 
therein was the wife of Sir Charles Dilke, 
in Dresden. 

In 1878, through the efforts of Sir 
Henry Thompson, the first crematory in 
England was built at Woking, in Surrey. 
However, it was four years before there 
vras a cremation and that was done pri- 
vately. In 188-4 England declared it was a 
legal process of disposal of the dead. 

The first crematory in the United States 
w^as built by Dr. Le Moyne, at "Washing- 
ton, Pa., in which the first cremation was 
that of Baron de Palm. Cremation socie- 
ties for the erection and maintenance of 
crematories now exist in nearly every large 
city in the world, and many distinguished 
persons have recently selected that process 
for the disposal of their remains. 

In 1900, at the Fresh Pond Crematory 
of Xew York City, there were 602 bodies 
cremated. Xearly 4,000 have been cre- 
mated at that place. Other places of cre- 
mation show a like increase of patronage, 
and the custom has virtually ceased to 
arouse comment. 

The method of the process is simple, and 
without any specially harrowing condi- 
tions. The furnace is raised to a high de- 
gree of heat before the body in the closed 
receiver is introduced, when the door is 
closed and the heated air and gas turned 
in. It requires about half an hour to com- 
plete the process, when the wholly oxidized 
vapors of the body have passed into the air 
through a high chimney, and the remain- 
ing ashes for an adult weigh from five to 
seven pounds. The cost is about $25, and 



would be one-tenth of that sum if the cua- 
tom was general. 

The main reasons urged in favor of this 
method of disposal of the dead are its 
cleanliness, speed and sanitary results. Op- 
posed to it are the religious ideas of a ma- 
terial resurrection and that it destroys all 
evidences of crime upon the body. To the 
first, the answer is given that this method 
is nowhere forbidden in scripture, and that 
all things are possible with God ; to the 
other, that more crimes would thereby be 
detected because of the scientific examina- 
tion of every body offered for cremation. 

LEGAL FACTS AND FORMS 

POWER OF ATTOEXET. 

Sometimes it is desirable for one who is 
to be absent from home to empower some 
one else to act for him and sign his name. 
The legal document conferring that author- 
ity is called a powder of attorney. Such an 
instrument should be drawn with the ut- 
most exactitude, for it is a very important 
grant, especially if it be general in char- 
acter. Here is a form, -with a variation for 
general or special power indicated: 

Know all men by these presents^ That I, 
John Jones, of the City of Chicago, County 
of Cook, State of Illinois, have made, con- 
stituted and appointed, and by these pres- 
ents do make, constitute and appoint, 
Henry Harris true and lawful attorney for 
me and in my name, place and stead, to 
lease, sell or make any other disposition 
whatever of any of my property in said city, 
[or certain specified property] and to sign, 
seal and deliver any agreement, assignment, 
assurance, conveyance or lease to any per- 
son who shall purchase, or agree to pur 



380 



Things ^eOe All Should K.nof» 



chase, such property, or any part thereof, 
and in due form of law to acknowledge any 
such instrument necessary to the proper 
conveying or leasing said premises, or any 
part thereof, giving and granting unto my 
said attorney full power and authority to 
do and perform all and every act and thing 
whatsoever, requisite and necessary to be 
done in and about the premises, as fully to 
all intents and purposes as I might or could 
do if personally present, with all power of 
substitution and revocation, hereby rati- 
fying and confirming all that my said attor- 
ney or his substitute shall lawfully do or 
cause to be done by virtue hereof. 

In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set 
my hand and seal the 2d day of June, nine- 
teen hundred and two. 

John Jones [seai.] 

Signed, sealed and delivered in the pres- 
ence of John Maktin, ISTotary Public. 

AFFIDAVITS AND DEPOSITIONS. 

An affidavit is a written statement sworn 
to or affirmed by the person making the 
statement, before a qualified officer. 

A deposition is the testimony of a witness 
under oath, reduced to writing, and sub- 
scribed to before a qualified officer. 

BILLS OF SALE. 

Bills of sale are written evidences of 
agreements by which parties transfer to 
others, for a consideration, all their right, 
title and interest in personal property. 

The ownership of personal property, in 
law, is considered changed by the delivery 
of such property to the purchaser; though 
in some states, without delivery, a bill of 
sale is good evidence of ownership, even 
against creditors, provided the sale was not 
fraudulently made for the purpose of avoid- 
ing the payment of debts. 



Juries have power to determine the fair- 
ness or unfairness of a sale, and upon evi- 
dence of fraud such bill of sale will be ig- 
nored and declared void. 

Any form of words, importing that the 
seller transfers to the buyer the title to per- 
sona] property, is a bill of sale. 

FOKMS OF DEEDS. 

The forms of deeds conveying lands are 
prescribed by several states, and such forms 
should be generally used. The requisites of 
a valid deed are : Competent parties ; con- 
sideration; the deed must be reduced to 
writing; it must be duly executed and de- 
livered. The mode and effect of an 
acknowledgTuent or of a deed is governed 
by the law of the state where the land lies, 
and not by that of the place where the 
acknowledgment is taken. Where the deed 
is executed by an attorney in fact, it is cus- 
tomary to have the power of attorney 
acknowledged by the principal and the deed 
acknowledged by the attorney. A deed exe- 
cuted by several grantors should be 
acknowledged by each of them. 



All persons are competent to make a will 
except idiots, persons of unsound mind, and 
infants. In many states a will of an un- 
married woman is deemed revoked by her 
subsequent marriage. A nuncupative or 
unwritten will is one made by a soldier in 
active service, or by a mariner while at sea. 

In most of the states a will must be in 
writing, signed by the testator, or by some 
person in his presence, and by his direction, 
and attested by witnesses, who must sub- 
scribe their names thereto in the presence 
of the testator. The form of wording a will 
is immaterial as long as its intent is clear. 

Age at which persons raay make wills is 



Things tOe All Should Kjno^ 



381 



in most of the states 21 years. Males and 
females are competent to make wills at 18 
years in the following states: California, 
Connecticut, Hawaiian Islands, Idaho, 
Montana, Nevada, North Dakota, Okla- 
homa Territory, South Dakota, Utah ; and 
in the following states only females at 18 
years: Colorado, District of Columbia, 
Illinois, Maryland, Missouri, Wisconsin. 

DUE BILLS. 

A due bill is not negotiable paper, so can 
not be legally assigned. It is, however, a 
memorandum of indebtedness, and may be 
made the subject of an order. Sometimes 
a due bill is made to take th» form of a note, 
by being made payable one day after date, 
or on order. To be a true due bill, in due 
form, it should merely state that there is a 
given amount in money or goods due this 
day to the holder. 

ORDERS FOR GOODS OK MONEY. 

Ordinary orders are a matter of mutual 
convenience, running much as follows : 

$60 Chicago, May 10, 1902. 

Messrs. Marshall Field & Co. : Please 
allow the bearer to purchase goods to the 
value of $60, and charge the same to my 
account. 

Horace Warner. 

An order is not mandatory. The holder 
is not obliged to present it, or to trade the 
full amount, nor is the merchant obliged to 
fill the requisition. In sending a stranger 
for any kind of movable property the sender 
should make out a written order and not 
rely on a verbal request. One should be 
very careful in honoring a verbal order, for 
it may be tbe person presenting '^ is a 
swindler. 



When the order is for the delivery of a 
specified article or articles, a receipt should 
be given by the person bringing the order, 
thus : 

Chicago, May 10, 1902. 
James P. Smith: Please deliver to 
bearer, Henry Walker, my roadcart, left 
for repair. George W. Jones. 

Chicago, May 11, 1902. 
Received of James P. Smith on the or- 
der of George W. Jones, one roadcart. 

Henry Walker, 
assignments. 

Assignments are any simple form of 
statement properly witnessed, which trans- 
fers the right of property to a desig-nated 
person. 

SPECIAL POINTS ABOUT NOTES. 

To be on the safe side, it is well to see 
to it that any note offered for negotiation is 
dated correctly; specifies the amount of 
money to be paid; names the person to 
whom it is to be paid; includes the words 
'^or order" after the name of the payee, if it 
is desired to make the note negotiable ; ap- 
points a place where the payment is to be 
made; states that the note is made "for 
value received ;" and is signed by the maker 
or his duly authorized representative. In 
some states phrases are required in the body 
of the note, such as, ''without defalcation or 
discount;" but, as a general thing, that fact 
is understood without the statement. 

The following rules have been compiled 
from the best authorities and cover the 
whole ground of the law of notes with ac- 
curacy and clearness : 

There are two parties to a note, the 
maker and the payee. 

If a note is lost or stolen, it does not re- 
lease the maker ; he must pay it, if the wn- 



382 



Thin^^ tOe All Should Knoiv 



sideration for -vvhicli it was given and the 
amount can be proven. 

l^otes bear interest only when so stated. 

A note made on Sunday is void. 

A note obtained by fraud, or from a per- 
son in a state of intoxication, cannot be col- 
lected. 

"Value received" is usually vpritten in a 
note, and should be, but is not necessary. If 
not written, it is presumed by law or may 
be supplied by proof. 

The maker of an "accommodation" bill 
or note (one for which he has received no 
consideration, having lent his name or 
credit for the accommodation of the holder) 
is not bound to the person accommodated, 
but is bound to all other parties, precisely 
as if there was a good consideration. 

N^o consideration is sufficient in law if it 
be illegal in its nature. 

A note indorsed in blank (the name of 
the indorser only written) is transferable 
by delivery, the same as if made payable to 
bearer. 

If time of payment of a note is not 
named, it is payable on demand. 

The time of payment of a note must not 
depend upon a contingency. The promise 
must be absolute. 

The holder of a note may give notice of 
protest either to all the previous indorsers 
or only to one of them ; in case of the latter 
he must select the last indorser, and the last 
must give notice to the last before him, and 
£0 on. Each indorser must send notice the 
same day or the day following. 

Neither Sunday nor any legal holiday is 
counted in reckoning time in which notice 
is to be given. 

The loss of a note is not sufficient excuse 
for not giving notice of protest. 

If two or more persons, as partners, are 



jointly liable on a note or bill, due notice to 
one of them is sufficient. 

If a note is transferred as security, or 
even as payment of a pre-existing debt, the 
debt revives if the note or bill be dishon- 
ored. 

An inuorsement may be written on the 
face or back. 

An indorser may prevent his own liabil- 
ity to be sued by writing, "without re- 
course," or similar words. 

Written instruments are to be construed 
and interpreted by the law according to the 
simple, customary and natural meaning of 
the Avords used. 

The finder of negotiable paper, as of all 
other property, must make reasonable ef- 
forts to find the owner, before he is entitled 
to appropriate it for his own purposes. If 
the finder conceal it he is liable to the 
charge of larceny or theft. 

One may make a note payable to his own 
order and indorse it in blank. He must 
write his name across the back or face, the 
same as any other indorser. 

An executor or administrator may in- 
dorse and transfer the note of a deceased 
person. 

FORMS OF NOTES. 

A Note Negotiable Only hy Indorsement. 
$200 Chicago, E'ov. 26, 1901. 

Three months after date I promise to pay 
to John H. Hunger, or order, two hundred 
dollars, value received. 

J. T. JSTOKTHROP. 

A Note Not Negotiable. 
$200. St. Louis, ITov. 17, 1901. 

ISTinety days after date I promise to pay 
Charles C. Sears two hundred dollars, value 
received. 

Samuel Atkinson. 



Things tOe All Should Knoto 

Note Bearing Interest. 



383 



$100. 

Baton Eouge, La., May 26, 1902. 
Six months after date I promise to pay 
R. V. Jennings, or order, one hundred dol- 
lars, with interest, for value received. 

John Q. Watson. 
A Note Payable on Demand. 
$150. 

Philadelphia, Nov. 30, 1901. 
On demand I promise to pay Edgar 
^^^littlesey, or bearer, one hundred and 
fifty dollars, value received. 

John K Chaffing. 
A Note Payable at Banlc. 
$100. Cincinnati, Dec. 24, 1901. 

Thirty days after date I promise to pay 
Mark I. Eankin, or order, at the Second 
ITational Bank, one hundred dollars, value 
received. 

Frank T. Mokkis. 

Guaranty of a Note. 
Eor value received, I guarantee the due 
payment of a promissory note, dated Octo- 
ber 8, 1901, whereby John Paxson promises 
to pay George E-uthledge eighty dollars in 
three months. 

St. Louis, October 10, 1901. 

Thomas Todd. 



SINGLE TAX: ITS MEANING AND 
ITS THEORIES 

Henry George, a profound student of 
financial and fiscal systems, was the first 
popular advocate of the theory now known 
as the "single tax." Simply stated, it 
means only to charge any one occupying 
land, the exact rental value of the bare 
land, without improvements, taking the 



rent thus collected, in place of all other 
taxes of any sort, as public funds for pub- 
lic uses. It does not suggest displacing 
any one from land occupied and used. 
The supporters of this theory are very ac- 
tive, and rapidly increasing in number. 
They issue the following statement of their 
position : 

The single tax would : 

1st. Take the weight of taxation off the 
agricultural districts where land has little 
or no value irrespective of improvements 
and put it on towns and cities where bare 
land rises to a value of millions of dollars 
per acre. 

2d. Dispense with a multiplicity of 
taxes and a horde of tax-gatherers, sim- 
plify government and greatly reduce its 
cost. 

3d. Do away with the fraud, corruption 
and gross inequality inseparable from our 
present methods of taxation, which allow 
the rich to escape while they grind the 
poor. 

4th. Give us with all the world as per- 
fect freedom of trade as now exists between 
the States of our Union, thus enabling our 
people to share through free exchanges in 
all the advantages which nature has given 
to other countries, or which the peculiar 
skill of other people has enabled them to 
attain. It would destroy the trusts, mo- 
nopolies and corruptions which are the out- 
growth of the tariff. 

5 th. It would, on the other hand, by 
taking for public use that value which at- 
taches to land by reason of the growth and 
improvement of the community, make the 
holding of land unprofitable to the mere 
owner and profitable only to the user. It 
would thus make it impossible for specula- 
tors and monopolists to hold natural oppor^ 



384 



Things ^eUe Alt Should K.notv 



tunities unused or only half used, and 
would throw open to labor the illimitable 
field of employment which the earth offers 
to man. It would thus solve the labor prob- 
lem, do away with involuntary poverty, 
raise wages in all occupations to the full 
earnings of labor, make overproduction im- 
possible until all human wants are satisfied, 
render labor saving inventions a blessing to 
all, and cause such an enormous produc- 
tion and such an equitable distribution of 
wealth as would give to all comfort, leisure 
and participation in the advantages of an 
advancing civilization. 

With respect to monopolies other than 
monopolies of land, we hold that when free 
competition becomes impossible, as in tele- 
graphs, railroads, water and gas supplies, 
etc., such business becomes a proper social 
function which should be controlled and 
managed by and for the whole people con- 
cerned through their proper government, 
local, state or national, as may be. 

.*8 Ji Si 

HOW FIRES ARE EXTIN- 
GUISHED 

While cities have been growing so rapid- 
ly, and sky-scraper buildings have become 
such a common feature of the cities, it has 
been necessary to study constantly for the 
improving of methods for fighting fire 
which might destroy property of such great 
value. So it is that city fire departments 
have been organized to a high degree of per- 
fection, both for the extinguishing of the 
flames, and for the saving of life of those 
who may be in danger. Some of the most 
ingenious and active of American inven- 
tors have busied themselves in this direc- 
tion, and we do not need to be told that the 



fire departments include men of tried braV-- 
ery, whose deeds of courage almost daily 
rival or excel the most daring deeds of sol- 
diers in battle. 

The organization of the fire department 
in such a city as Chicago, for instance, is 
a matter of the greatest importance to the 
entire community. It must be efficient, 
kept up to the highest standard of excel- 
lence, and supplied with the bravest of men 
and the best of material at all times, if it 
is to do this work properly. However much _, 
political influence may have affected the ■ 
appointment and administration of the po- T 
lice force, the community has rarely tol- 
erated any invasion of the fire department 
with political influence. The annual ex- 
penditure for the fire department is nearly 
$1,600,000 for the one city of Chicago. 
The department includes a total of nearly 
1,200 men, organized in almost military 
fashion, with a marshal and his assistants, 
chiefs of battalions, captains and lieuten- 
ants, in addition to hundreds of engineers, 
pipemen, truckmen, drivers, stokers and 
watchmen. These brave men save every 
year many times as much as the department 
costs, and the citizens consider it a splendid 
investment to maintain it. At the slightest 
sign of deterioration in the fire department, 
or any reduction in the number of men 
employed in it which might reduce its effi- 
ciency, the fire insurance companies prompt- 
ly raise their rates for insurance, so that 
the increase in premiums paid in the city 
far more than exhausts the slight saving 
made in the expense of the department. 

These facts are typical of the conditions 
in every other city throughout the country. 
Even in small towns where no paid fire de- 
partment is maintained, the custom is to be 
liberal in the support of volunteer compa- 



Things tae Att Should Knobo 



:si 




FIREMEN'S EXTENSION LADDER IN SERVICE. 



nies, which are usually equipped 
with the best appliances that the 
community can afford. In spite 
of this, the fire losses for the year 
1901, the last for which fig-ures 
are obtainable, amounted to more 
than $150,000,000, while the loss 
in life exceeded 200. With such 
a showing of costly disaster, it is 
not strange that every effort pos- 
sible is made to improve the 
methods of averting such calami- 
ties. 

Some of the appliances re- 
cently put into service in fire 
fighting are ingenious in the ex- 
treme, although they are not al- 
ways complicated, the simplest 
being sometimes the best. Port- 
able fire extinguishers are made, 
by which, if a fire be reached 
early in its progress, the flames 
may be extinguished without the 
aid of water or engines. This 
apparatus is chemical in its char- 
acter, releasing gases or liquids 
which are unfavorable to fire, 
smothering it as soon as they 
come in contact with it. One of 
the simplest of these consists of 
a small bottle _ of acid sealed with 
mica and containing a rubber- 
covered lead ball. This bottle is 
within a larger one, holding in 
addition some gallons of water in 
which soda is held in solvition. 
The whole apparatus is enclosed 
in a metal case, and fitted with 
a hose. When the alarm is given 
it is inverted, the ball breaks 
through the mica, and the re- 
leased acid coming into contact 
with the soda and water generates 



186 



Things tOe Alt Should Knottf 



gas, which diseharges a stream of the liquid 
about fifty feet. 

All firemen agree that the first five min- 
utes of a fire are worth more in fighting it 
than the next half hour, so that all efforts 
are made to be as prompt as possible in 
reaching the scene of 
danger. Horses ready 
harnessed and trained 
to start instantly Avhcn 
the alarm is given, men 
on the alert every mo- 
ment when they are 
on duty, and buildings 
properly construe ted 
and equipped with safe- 
ty in view, are prune 
essentials in addition 
to the apparatus itself. 
Ifowadays mills, fac- 
tories and large build 
ings of all sorts are 
equipped with hose, 
ladders, hydrants, fire extinguishers and 
fire escapes. The employes are organized 
into companies and drilled to fight fire so 
as to be ready for any emergency. 

There is a firemen's training school in 
!N"ew York, which prepares men for active 
service in the department before they are 
permitted to begin the actual responsibili- 
ties of the work, and in Chicago and other 
cities the same results are obtained by drill 
of all new recruits in the department. They 
are taught to handle lifelines, safety nets 
into which people may jump from burning 
buildings, and the hose, hooks and ladders 
themselves. They are given drill with the 
remarkable extension ladders and extension 
nozzles which enable fires in tall buildings 
to be fought and rescues to be made, where 
such work would have been impossible a 



few years ago. Then they are finally put 
to work as a part of the crew of an engine 
or a hose cart, and begin to take their lives 
in their hands at every call to duty. The 
public has an immense admiration for the 
firemen and they can always count on ap- 




1 



NET FOR CATCHING THOSE WHO JUMP FROM BURNING BUILDINGS. 

plause for their bravery and support when 
they need assistance in any worthy move- 
ment. There is a halo of glory about a 
fireman's head which is universally recog- 
nized, and until all buildings are proof 
against destruction by flame, which may be 
true, thanks to improved building methods, 
after many years, he will always stand in 
the place of distinction. 

ASBESTOS CLOTH THAT WILL 
NOT BURN 

A long, lank, slow-voiced Englishman 
left his native land a score of years ago and 
settled in Quebec, where he hired out as a 
laborer in a lumber yard. His great bodily 
strength, supplemented by his energy and 



I 



Things ^COe All Should Knottf 



387 



activity, soon won him an excellent posi- 
tion. After he had been at work a num- 
ler of months he returned one cold winter 
evening to the capacious, shed-like build- 
ing in which they all lived. Seating him- 
self comfortably before the pot-bellied cast- 
iron stove, the open mouth of which glowed 
red with heat, he deliberately drew off his 
long, wet boots. Then a pair of socks, 
much the worse for Quebec mud, came off 
one after the other, and his companions 
saw him coolly fling them into the fire. 

They made no comment on his action, 
but when, almost immediately afterward, 
they saw him reach into the stove with a 
poker, pull out the apparently blazing 
socks, and, after giving them a shake, pro- 
ceed with the greatest unconcern to draw 
them on his feet again, they stood aghast. 
It was plainly an exhibition of witchcraft. 
Then they scrambled over one another in 
their haste to reach the door, through which 
they burst into the dark. 

The next day they called on the man- 
ager in a body and demanded the instant 
dismissal of the Englishman, loudly de- 
claring that they would not longer eat or 
drink or work with such a monster. In- 
quiry being made at once, it was found that 
the big Englishman had worked in an as- 
bestos factory before crossing the water, 
and being of an ingenious turn of mind he 
had managed to secure some of the mate- 
rial, out of which to knit himself a pair of 
socks. When they became soiled he cleaned 
them in the fire. But such explanations 
were of no avail with his ignorant compan- 
ions, and he was compelled to leave his 
work. 

Asbestos is a wonderful substance. Its 
name comes from a Greek word meaning- 
inconsumable. Eire will not burn it, acids 



will not giiaw it, weather will not corrode 
it. It is the paradox of minerals — for a 
mineral it is, quarried just like marble. 
The fibers of which it is composed are as 
soft as silk, and fine and feathery enough 
to float on water. Yet in the mines they 
are so compressed that they are hard and 
crystalline like stone. 

Although the substance has been known 
for ages in the form of mountain cork and 
mountain leather, comparatively little has 
been learned as to its geological history and 
formation. A legend tells how Emperor 
Charlemagne, being possessed of a table- 
cloth woven of asbestos, was accustomed to 
astonish his guests by gathering it up after 
the meal, casting it into the fire and with- 
drawing it later cleansed but unconsumed. 

Yet, although the marvelous attributes 
of asbestos have been known for so long, 
they were turned to little practical use un- 
til about twenty years ago. Since that time 
the manufacture of the material has grown 
until it can take its place shoulder to shoul- 
der with any of the giant industries of this 
country. Indeed, so rapid has been its 
progress and development that there is al- 
most no literature of any kind on the sub- 
ject, and to the popular mind it is still 
one of those dim, inexplicable things. A 
dealer in asbestos goods says that the ma- 
jority of persons who use the substance are 
firmly convinced that it is all manufac- 
tured by some secret process from wool 
or cotton. 

Up to the late '70s nearly all the as- 
bestos used came from the Italian Alps and 
from Syria, but one day a party of explor- 
ers discovered a rich deposit in what is 
known as the eastern townships of Quebec 
in Canada. Companies were at once 
formed, and in 1879 the mines were 



388 



Things XOe All Should Kjxoiv 



opened. Remarkable as it may seem, how- 
ever, althougii the Canadians started fac- 
tories, in the operation of which they were 
substantially backed by English caj)ital, it 
was an American concern, with headquar- 
ters in ISTew York, that developed the man- 
ufacturing industry most rapidly. The 
company has now grown so large that it 
has branches in nearly all the large cities 
of the country, and the machinery used is 
specially made and peculiarly adapted to 
the manufacture of asbestos articles. There 
are also a number of large factories in Eng- 
land. 

The Canadian mines are located in a 
wild, rough country, almost outside of the 
pale of civilization. The hills have worn 
themselves bare of earth, and the bleak 
rocks glare out in great, bald patohes. At 
one time a scraggy growth of pines clung 
to the remaining ridges of soil, but forest 
fires, the hand of man, and the ravages of 
wind and weather, have left only the 
dreary waste of burned and blackened 
stumps. The sides of the hills gape with 
great, holes in which the men — mostly 
Erench-Canadians — are at work. The 
veins of chrysotile, as the Canadian asbes- 
tos is called, are from two to four inches 
in thickness and are separated by thin lay- 
ers of hornblende crystals. The nearer to 
the surface the veins run the coarser are 
the fibers and the less valuable. 

The mining is done by means of the most 
improved quan-ying machinery. Holes are 
drilled in long rows into the sides of the 
cliffs by means of steam drills. They are 
then loaded with dynamite and exploded 
simultaneously by wires connecting with 
an electric battery in such a way that a 
whole ledge of the rock falls to the bottom of 
tlie pit at once. Then the workmen break 



out as much of the pure asbestos as possi- 
ble and load it into great tubs or trucks, 
which are hoisted out by means of der- 
ricks and run along to the "cob house." 
Here scores of boys are kept busily em- 
ployed crumbling or "cobbing" the pieces 
of rock away from the asbestos, and throw- 
ing the lumps of good fiber to one side, 
where it is placed in rough bales or sacks 
ready for shipment to the factory. 

The greatest work in connection with 
the mining of asbestos is in disposing of 
the waste rock and the refuse of the quarry. 
Only about one twenty-fifth of the material 
quarried is real asbestos, and the rocky 
parts have to be lifted out and carried away 
to the dumps at great expense. As if in 
keeping with the forlorn and blasted ap- 
pearance of the country the miners are a 
hard, uncanny class of men. migratory in 
disposition and exceedingly superstitious. 
Their wages range from $1 to $1.50 a day. 

As the asbestos comes from the mines it 
is in small lumps of a greenish or yellowish 
hue and the edges are furred with loose 
fibers. The more nearly white the asbes- 
tos is the better its grade. The length of 
fiber is also of great importance, the long- 
est being the most valuable. 

From the mines the asbestos is taken by 
rail to the manufacturers in the United 
States. Here the lumps of the substance 
are emptied from the sacks and fed into the 
hopper of a powerfully built machine, not 
unlike an old-fashioned stone-process flour 
mill. They are crushed through a series 
of rolls, until the fibers are all separated 
into flufl^y masses, when they pass out along 
a trough and into a separator. Here the 
small pieces of stone and other refuse rattle 
out through a sieve, and the longer fibers 
are separated by a series of comb-like 



Things tOe All Should Knoto 



389 



sieves into various lengths. The very short 
ones are taken out to the pulp-mill, where 
thev are ground up fine for the manufac- 
ture of solid packing for steam pistons, 
niillhoard and other commodities. The 
longer fibers are gathered together, carded, 
and spun into yarn, just like cotton or 
•\^-ool. After that the substance may be 
woven into cloth in various ways. The 
cloth is of a dirty white color and has a 
soapy feeling. 

The uses of asbestos are almost innumer- 
able. Ground fine, and combined with 
colors and oils by a secret process, it makes 
a beautiful paint, which is said to go far 
toward fire-proofing the surface to which 
it is applied. Various kinds of roofing 
are also made by treating strong canvas 
with a combination of asbestos and felt and 
backing it with manilla paper. It is ex- 
tensively used for roofs of factories, rail- 
road shops, bridges, steamboat decks and 
other places where there is danger of fire. 

Xearly every one has seen the thick, as- 
bestos-felt coverings for steam-pipes and 
furnaces. Asbestos-cement is sometimes 
used for hot-blast pipes and fire-heated sur- 
faces. As a packing for locomotive pistons, 
valve stems and oil pumps it is almost in- 
dispensable. It is also made into ropes and 
mill-boards which can be used almost 
everywhere. Asbestos cloth is being used 
more every year. Some states require thea- 
ters to use an asbestos drop-curtain to pro- 
tect the audience if the scenery catches fire. 
Some very beautiful drop-curtains have 
been made, and the ordinary spectator can- 
not dlstingTiish them from real cloth. 

The yarn is knit into mittens for work- 
ers in iron and glass. Goldsmiths use a 
block of asbestos to solder upon. Combined 
with rubber — ^vulcanized — asbestos has al- 



most innumerable uses as an electrical in- 
sulator. In this form the substance resem- 
bles ebony, and is about as hard. The cloth 
is also of the greatest importance for acid- 
fitters in all kinds of chemical processes, 
for the reason that no acid will eat it. 

Asbestos is found in a good many hun- 
dreds of places in the world beside Italy 
and Canada, but the fibers are nearly all 
splintery and brittle. Rich deposits have 
recently been found in Wyoming, Califor- 
nia and Montana, and the United States 
may soon come to the front as a producer of 
the substance. With asbestos worth about 
$50 a ton, as it is, a good mine of asbestos 
is more valuable than a gold mine, and as 
the substance becomes better known and 
more used it will be still more precious. 
The time may not be far distant when fire- 
men will be clothed in suits made from as- 
bestos. 

MINERAL WOOL AND ITS USES 

Since the discovery, some years ago, that 
asbestos could be felted together into a sort 
of paper and used wherever a nonconduct- 
ing, noncombustible packing was needed, 
the demand for it has steadily increased. 
Xew forms and new uses are continually 
appearing, while the supply is constantly 
diminishing. This has led to the search for 
a substitute. 

By melting together the various minerals 
of which asbestos is composed, a material 
of the same composition is easily obtained, 
but the stringy, fibrous quality which makes 
the asbestos so valuable is wanting. An 
accidental blast or stream of melted slag 
from an iron furnace gave the first and 
most important step in the solution of the 



390 



Things tOe AlIX Should Knotv 



problem, and from this it has been worked 
out almost to perfection. At first "glass," 
or "mineral" wool was made largely from 
slag, which contains many of the minerals 
needed — sand, lime and iron. But this 
product was too glassy, was not tough 
enough, and melted too easily. 

A careful analysis of asbestos was made, 
and the minerals — limestone, sand, fire-clay 
or kaolin and iron slag — containing the 
proper elements, were mixed. 

As made now, by the improved methods, 
waste products from other factories are 
used principally. Broken glass from win- 
dows and from bottle houses furnishes the 
sand and a part of the lime ; pieces of fire- 
clay bricks, broken glass-pots and dish-ware 
that has warped and cracked in the kilns 
furnish the clay; and iron slag from the 
pudding ovens supplies the iron and part 
of the sand and lime. A little extra lime- 
stone is added. These waste products, be- 
sides being cheaper, are better than simple 
sand, lime and clay would be, as they are in 
a hard, chunky form, and "stand up" in 
the furnace, allowing a better circulation 
of air and gas while heating. Loose sand 
and clay would pack. 

The materials are crushed and mixed ac- 
cording to a rough formula, which is 
worked out by experiment. It is very ne- 
cessary that the amount of each should be 
just right. If too much glass is used the 
wool is brittle and harsh ; if too much clay, 
the fibers are coarse and heavy, and if too 
much iron, the product is dark and does 
not sell weF 

The mixed material is placed in tall fire- 
brick furnaces, with alternate layers of 
coke, each layer being about one foot deep. 
Natural gas, where obtainable, is led into 
the bottom of the furnace, the fire is lighted 



and a blast of air from a blower is turned 
on, getting up an intense heat. The glass 
melts, acting as a flux, and melting the 
other materials. The part nearest the bot- 
tom of the furnace melts first and the whole 
mass settles down. When the bottom is suf- 
ficiently liquid a small hole is opened at the 
side of the furnace, and the liquid mass is 
allowed to fiow out in a stream about one 
inch in diameter. As this falls a jet of 
steam from two flat, fan-shaped nozzles i« 
directed against it, blowing it into a fine 
spray which, on cooling, is a white, fibrous 
mass resembling fine, well-washed wool, 
hence its name. 

The spray is blown through a small win- 
doAV into a large collecting room. While 
the blast is on this room is filled with a 
white cloud, looking like cotton down. Two 
furnaces and two rooms are used, alternat- 
ing with each other. When the blast is fin- 
ished in one furnace, the downy wool is al- 
lowed to settle, and is then scraped from the 
sides, the fioor and the ceiling; it is 
weighed, packed in bales and then is ready 
for the market. 

The heaviest part which settles nearest 
the window contains little, beadlike bodies, 
called in the trade "shot," and due to im- 
perfect blowing. This is remelted or sold' 
for rough packing. The uses of the mineral 
wool are very numerous and are multiply- 
ing all the time. The chief ones are the 
adulteration of asbestos ; packings to retain 
heat, as on steam pipes, steam cylinders and 
boilers; and packings to keep out heat, as 
in ice machines, refrigerators, cold-rooms 
and cold-storage warehouses. Of late large 
amounts are used for the deadening of 
walls and floors in flreproof buildings. The 
mineral wool is used either loose or in the 
form of paper, felting or thick wadding. 



Thin^^f tOe All Should K.noXv 



391 



HOW ARTIFICIAL SILK IS MADE 

Dr. Frederick Lehner of Zurich, Switz- 
erland, has opened an active competition 
with the silk worm by the invention of a 
cheap and simple process of making an ex- 
cellent quality of artificial silk. It has 
been known for a good mafty years in the 
scientific world that a substance of prac- 
tically the same chemical composition as 
silk could be made, but the secret of render- 
ing the process industrially practical re- 
mained undiscovered until Dr. Lehner took 
up the work. The basis of the discovery 
rests on the well-known truth in chemistry 
that many vegetable fabrics, such as waste 
cotton, cloth, flax, jute and wood, when di- 
gested by treatment Avith acids and alkalis 
are transformed into cellulose, a substance 
forming the walls of cells. By combining 
this material with nitric acid, certain ni- 
trates of cellulose are formed, the higher 
compounds of which are such well-known 
explosives as cordite and tonite. The lower 
or pyroxylin nitrates are less explosive, 
being a gelatinous substance. If this be 
drawn out it will divide into numerous 
short threads or strings of a fine, shiny tex- 
ture, somewhat like gun-cotton, and most 
inflammable when dried. To this point a 
great number of chemists succeeded in get- 
ting, but they could not give the product 
of their test-tubes a sufficient viscosity to 
admit of being drawn out into long threads. 
Dr. Lehner tried various solutions, but 
even when the amount of the pyroxylin was 
reduced to 7 per cent the compound was 
still too gelatinous to be worked. 

At last he discovered that by adding di- 
lute sulphuric acid to the alcohol ether so- 
lution, a part of the water was taken up 
and "split off" and the nitrates broken 



down, leaving a 12 per cent solution which 
was perfectly fluid and of the required vis- 
cosity. The process having once been dis- 
covered, the manufacture of the fluid is an 
inexpensive and perfectly simple operation 
for any chemist. 

The method by which the common-look- 
ing yellow liquid is converted into beautiful 
silk threads is most interesting. The ma- 
chine used is nothing more than a modifica- 
tion of the ordinary spinning frame. The 
great glass jar containing the silk fluid is 
set up on a high bench or shelf and the fluid 
is conveyed downward through pipes to a 
number of bent glass tubes resting in a 
trough of cold water. The orifices in the 
ends of the tubes are exceedingly minute, 
and rest just beneath the surface of the 
water. As the fluid flows through the 
tubes it is quicky cooled and begins to coag- 
ulate. On leaving the water about 60 per 
cent of its soluble portion has been 
washed away and the remaining thread 
is of a fine, rich lustre. Six or 
seven of the strands are gathered up 
and twisted together, exactly as silk 
or woolen threads are spun. After it 
has been wound upon the frame the ar- 
tificial silk dries and hardens, losing in this 
process the remains of its soluble matter. 
In a week's time the thread cannot be dis- 
tinguished from the real article even by a 
silk expert except by microscope or chem- 
ical examination. 

But the thread in this condition retains 
its characteristics as a nitrate, and is al- 
most as inflammable as gun-cotton. Of 
course it would never do for use while 
there was danger at any moment of its 
blowing up. The consequences of wearing 
a dress made of such material may be easily 
imagined. Consequently the thread is sub- 



392 



Things tOe All Should Knobu 



mitted to a last process — that of denitra- 
tion, in which by the use of ammonium 
sulphide the nitric acid is all neutralized. 

After the thread has been again dried, 
it is really less inflammable than natural 
silk. It can now be spun to any required 
thickness, and it is said that the resulting 
yarn is much smoother and more even than 
the genuine article. It has another advan- 
tage. When the machines are once started 
the threads can be spun to any required 
length — endless, if necessary — thus obviat- 
ing any necessity of stopping the cloth- 
looms to splice a thread. In addition to 
this the process can be carried on through 
winter and summer in any part of the 
world. There will be no need of mulberry 
forests or worm hatcheries, for by taking 
a quantity of cast-off clothing, and perhaps 
some wood pulp, and mixing them with 
the acids, the work is done. 

Yet the artificial silk lacks in several 
particulars of being as good as the natural 
product, and it is proposed to make it an 
economic factor in the manufactux-e of real 
silk goods. The warp of a fabric may be 
made of genuine silk and the woof of the 
artificial silk. In this way the artificial 
silk would take the place of wool or cot- 
ton in a mixed fabric, which would be just 
as cheap and much finer. 

The relative strength of the artificial 
silk, compared with Italian pure silk, is as 
68 to 100. Pure silk has but little elastic- 
ity, and when stretched does not go back 
to its original length ; neither does the arti- 
ficial silk, but its stretching quality (be- 
fore breaking) is as 73 to 100 relatively. 
Measure for measure, the relative weight 
of the same average diameters of pure and 
artificial silk is 7.25 per cent more in the 
latter. 



BUTTONS, THEIR INVENTION 
AND MANUFACTURE 

Adam did not wear buttons. Even when 
his wardrobe reached the dignity of con- 
taining "other clothes," he was compelled 
to fasten his apparel with a sash or borrow 
a spike from Tubal Cain. In fact, until 
the beginning of the fourteenth century, 
the world managed to struggle along with- 
out these modern conveniences. Buttons 
were first used as ornaments. They were 
sewed on according to the taste or caprice 
of the maker or wearer of clothing, and 
they were seldom placed where they might 
have been of practical service, even had 
there been buttonholes to match them. 
Some time in the lattev part of Queen 
Elizabeth's reig-n it was discovered that a 
small slit cut in the cloth and shoved over 
the button made these ornaments useful. 
From that time on the making of buttons 
grew until it has become one of the most 
important industries. With the practical 
use of buttons came a revolution in dress. 
The last relic of the fiowing robes handed 
doAvn from patriarchal days was consigned 
to the shelves of museums, and the simpler 
modern dress was introduced. 

It was the fashion in the early days of 
buttonmaking to sew as many buttons on 
the clothing as the texture would bear. 
Even the laboring classes managed to deck 
themselves to a degree which to-day ap- 
pears ridiculous. This at one? created a 
demand, and the close of the iseventeenth 
century saw the button industry well es- 
tablished in Europe, the center being then, 
as now, Birmingham, England. The first 
buttons were very expensive. They were 
made chiefly of gold and pearl, rich in de- 
sign, and inlaid with precious metals and 




BUTTONS FSOM MTSftTHWTPPI BIVSB PBASL BHXLIA 



394 



Things tOe Att Should Knotv 



jefwels. Following these came tlie cloth- 
covered and silk-covered buttons, which 
were made entirely with the needle. These 
brought a high price, and the workmen re- 
ceived the largest wages in those days for 
needlework. As the demand for buttons in- 
creased and man's inventive genius was 
taxed, machines were produced for the 
making of steel, brass, inlaid, plated and 
lacquered buttons, and later for the rapid 
manufacture of covered buttons. 

These last are made by covering with silk, 
.lasting, brocade, twist, velvet, mohair and 
■various cloths, metal disks which have 
been previously cut out of sheet iron and 
molded with dies. The frame of this but- 
ton consists of two pieces of sheet iron, the 
under piece being slightly convex and hav- 
ing a small round hole in the center 
through which a tuft of canvas is pressed. 
This is for sewing the button to the cloth. 
The upper disk is also slightly convex and 
made a little larger than the lower piece. 
The edge of the upper disk is turned down 
about a sixteenth part of an inch in the 
medium-sized buttons. These disks are cut 
from the sheet, formed and made ready for 
covering by one motion of the "fly press" 
or punching machine. 

Tor covering, another machine is used, 
simple in construction, but capable of turn- 
ing out a great many buttons in a day 
when operated by an expert. It consists of 
a central upright shaft, to the lower end of 
which is attached a die so constructed as to 
press a piece of cloth around and under the 
upper disk of the button. The shaft is al- 
lo^ved to move up and down through two 
heads fastened to a stout frame of iron. 
Below the upper die is a contrivance hav- 
ing two dies which may be moved at will 
in line with the upper die. In these the 



parts of the button are placed. One liolds 
the upper disk and the piece of cloth, tlie 
other the under disk. A pressure of the 
operator's foot on the treadle brings the 
upper die on the first lower die. This 
shapes the cloth. The second lower die is 
shoved imder, the treadle is pressed and the 
button is complete. The dies have not only 
folded the cloth around and under the iip- 
per disk, but they have clinched the two 
disks of the button close together. An ex- 
pert worker may make from seventy-five to 
eighty-five gross of buttons a day with this 
machine. 

Buttons made of vegetable ivory are 
widely used in this country and in Eng- 
land. The material is obtained from a 
palm tree that grows in South America. 
It has the name of "tagua plant," and in 
Peru it is called "negro's head." When 
young the seed of this palm contains a 
milky substance which with age becomes 
very hard and white, resembling ivory. The 
seeds as used in commerce are from an 
inch to three inches in size and almost 
roimd. Before they go to the buttonmak- 
ing machines they are steamed to render 
their cutting easier. Then they are sawed 
into slices of proper thickness. The button 
is cut out with a tubular saw and each 
button is turned separately in a small 
lathe. Other machines are used for drill- 
ing holes, polishing and finishing the but- 
tons. Vegetable ivory is capable of re- 
ceiving almost any color, and the dyeing of 
buttons made from it is one of the most 
important and most carefully guarded se- 
crets of the craft. 

Livery, emblem and society buttons are 
made by stamping, the machines used be- 
ting the disks for metal buttons. The de- 
ing the same in principle as those for cut- 



I 



Things Xae Atl Should Knoto 



395 



sired figure which the face of the finished 
button is to assume is cut in the upper die, 
the reverse being made in relief on the un- 
der die. They are stamped and pressed 
together without soldering. 

Materials employed in button making 
are as varied as the styles of buttons. In 
addition to metal-covered buttons and 
those made from other metals, glass, porce- 
lain, horn, bone, India rubber, mother-of- 
pearl and other products of shellfish and 
various woods are used. The shells for 
mother-of-pearl come from the Persian 
Gulf, the Eed Sea, the Pacific coast and 
Panama. Paper buttons have been made, 
but not extensively. An English invention 
uses slate or slit-stone in making buttons 
and button bodies. 

The first buttons made in the United 
States were of wood, covered by hand with 
difl'erent materials, principally silk. The 
operation was laborious, but it resulted in 
the invention of machinery which has built 
up large factories in the east, Waterbury, 
Conn., and Easthampton, Mass., being cen- 
ters of manufacture in this country. I^ew 
York has several large factories. 

The details of preparing the sheet iron 
for metal and metal-covered buttons are 
simple. The iron is first scaled by im- 
mersing it in acid, after which it is 
punched out with the dies. The neck, or 
"collet," is japanned, after being cut, and 
before the canvas tuft for sewing on is 
pressed into place. The hollow between the 
neck and shell is then filled Avith brown 
paper, called "button board." The making 
of these basic parts of the cloth-covered but- 
ton is confined almost entirely to the east- 
ern states. Western manufacturers buy the 
material ready to cover. Button shanks, or 
eyelets, are made of wire on a machine 



which cuts the wire into desired lengths, 
bends it into loops and leaves it ready for 
insertion into the lower blank. 

The name "shell" is given to metal but- 
tons made of two disks pressed together and 
fastened without soldering. A cloth-faced 
button is made by gluing a piece of cloth, 
cut the exact size, into the top of a rubber 
or vegetable ivory body. This leaves a 
rim of hard material to protect the edges 
of the button from wearing. In these the 
thread holes are drilled through a knob 
turned or molded on the back of the body. 

The great decrease in the price of buttons 
from that which made the first manufac- 
tured a luxury, has been due to the intro- 
duction of machinery, which now does al- 
most the entire work. Skilled labor does 
not occupy a large place in the making of 
buttons, which may also account for their 
comparative cheapness. Girls and boys 
may operate nearly all the machinery, 
which is a combination of automatic fea- 
tures, leaving little to the operator but dex- 
terity in handling the different pieces for 
the dies. 

One of the curious freaks of buttondom, 
invented some years ago, was a "bachelor's" 
button. This consisted of an ordinary 
trousers button with a safety pin attach- 
ment. It was to answer in cases of emer- 
gency, but it has not succeeded in entirely 
banishing the more homely but reliable 
horse-shoe nail. 

IN A TYPE rOUNDRY 

Every type in a font, like every link in a 
chain, must be perfect in itself, or else the 
work of the maker counts for nothing. Per- 
haps in no other industry, unless it be 
watch-mtking, is such scientific accuracy 



396 



Things tOe Alt Should Knoto 



required in every detail. Eacli measure- 
ment must be made to the thousandth part 
of an inch, and if a mold or a die is not 
exact to a hair's breadth a whole casting 
may be lost. For in this age of newspapers 
every printed page is judged to a certain 
extent from an artistic point of view, and 
if the impressions of some type are heavier 
than those of others, or if the alignment is 
imperfect or the spacing uneven, it is sub- 
jected to condemnation. In this way type- 
founding becomes a real art. 

One of the largest manufactories of type 
in the world is located in Chicago and the 
amount of type in tons which it turns out 
yearly runs well up into the thousands. It 
is a big, busy building humming with life 
and movement, more than 350 men and 
girls working at its benches every day. 

Follow the superintendent down the 
basement stairs, around the huge boilers 
and engines, and into the little corner room 
where the type metal is melted. Here the 
raw materials are brought, weighed and 
corded up ready to go to the big iron cruci- 
ble. There are "pigs" of lead, heavier than 
an ordinary man can lift, "pigs" of tin and 
"pigs" of copper. The antimony comes 
from Japan in square, solid blocks weigh- 
ing thirty pounds each, and before melting 
it is crushed to powder between the iron 
jaws of a crushing machine. Formerly 
the workmen broke it up with hammers, 
but the antimony being poisonous, that 
method was abandoned. 

The four metals are mixed according to 
a secret formula — the lead being the largest 
ingredient — and placed in a crucible. An- 
timony, which is a most expensive metal, 
is used because it gives hardness to the 
type-composition and because it has the un- 
usual quality of expanding in cooling, thus 



preventing the type when cast from "fall- 
ing away" from the mold, and produces 
sharpness of the face and body of the type. 
After being melted and thoroughly mixed 
by stirring the metal is run into pans, and 
when cool it is ready for the casting ma- 
chines. 

The first step in type-making is the cut- 
ting of the letters desired on the ends of 
pieces of hard, fine steel. This is very diffi- 
cult work, and the men who do it receive 
high wages. Each letter in a font must be 
exactly the same height and the width must 
be cut according to rule. A separate one of 
these dies or "punches" is required for each 
character in every imt of type, and the 
making of them is the most expensive part 
of the business. Some of them cost as high 
as $7. 

When a set of "punches" is complete it 
goes to the matrix department. Here lit- 
tle rectangular pieces of pure copper known 
as "strikes" have been prepared. For min- 
ion or long primer type they are about two 
inches long by half an inch broad. At ex- 
actly the proper point near the top of each 
the steel die is driven in and then ^the 
"strike" or embryo matrix goes to the fitter, 
who rubs and polishes it do'wn on big pieces 
of sandstone until it is everywhere square 
and perfect and the depth of the letter is 
exactly the same as in the rest of the font 
matrices. An electrotype matrix is also 
made, usually for use in casting display 
type, without going to the expense of cut- 
ting steel punches. This is done by immers- 
ing in a copper solution a piece of brass the 
size of a "strike" and having a hole at the 
upper end and allowing copper to be de- 
posited by the action of electricity on a 
metal die of the desired letter, which is sus- 
pended with its face just inside the hole in 



Things tOe All Should Knotef 



397 



the brass. Great pains is taken to keep all 
these molds and dies perfect. More than 
$200,000 worth of them are stored in a big 
vault in the basement. 

Next the mold is made. This work re- 
quires the most skilled mechanics in steel. 
The pieces are all cut out by lathes, planers 
and shapers and groimd down to just the 
right size and then polished on emery laps. 
There are two main parts to the mold, and 
they may be so adjusted as to make roomfor 
casting the bodies of letters of any width 
from a 3-m size to an i size. A great deal 



water from above. When the movable arm 
is as far back as possible, a half of the mold 
lifts and the type jumps out. At the lower 
end of each one there is a little "jet" of 
metal which clings and has to be bi'oken off 
by an automatic device. In some of the 
larger styles of type the "jet" is removed 
by hand. When all of the a's in the font 
are made, the b matrix is put in, and so on 
to the end of the alphabet. A casting ma- 
chine will turn out from 100 to 175 type a 
minute. 

In casting small fonts where frequent 






TYPE IN THE VARIOUS STAGES OF MANUFACTURE. 
Showing in succession, from left to right, the "punch," the "drive" or "strike,' 
unfinished type with "jet" and the finished type. 



the "matrix," thb 



depends on the absolute accuracy of these 
molds. The matrix is now fastened in the 
mold so that it will form one end of the 
hole between the two parts. Then one of 
the parts is fastened to the casting machine 
and the other to a movable arm. The metal 
is kept fluid in a little furnace heated by 
natural gas, and is projected with great 
force into the mold by means of a pump. 
At every revolution of the crank the mold 
approaches the pump spout, takes a charge 
of metal, and flies back with a fully formed 
type, which is cooled with air-blasts and 



changes are made in the molds, the machines 
are driven by hand-power ; but where fonts 
are large, such as those made for newspa- 
pers, steam is the propelling power and the 
indefatigable little machines go thumping 
along with little or no attention and do 
their work with a precision that almost 
equals human intelligence. 

The type is not finished when it leaves 
the machine. A fringe or burr, somewhat 
like that which clings to a bullet cast in a 
mold, still adheres to its corners and sides. 
This is taken off by a number of girls who 



398 



Things O/tf Alt Should Knobu 



inib rows of the type on sandstone laps. The 
deftness and ease with which they handle 
the type, which would so easily "pi" in the 
hands of an inexperienced person, are 
simply wonderful. All italic and script 
type are sent to be "kerned." This is a 
process of cu.tting away and smoothing the 
body around the projecting parts of the 
letter, and it adds materially to the cost of 
these two classes of type. 

The "setters," nimble-fingered girls, sit 
firound low tables, the tops of which are 
cushioned in velvet. Here the type is 
dumped and the girls set them in long lines 
with the nicks uppermost. They now go to 
the "dresser," who slips the row into a stick 
or dressing-rod about three feet long, turns 
them on their faces, fastens them into a slit 
in an iron bench specially constructed for 
that purpose, and with a plane cuts a groove 
in the bottom, which removes the burr left 
in breaking off the "jet," and gives 
he type two legs to stand on. He then 
ieftly turns the long row upside down and 
iresses off the uneven places along the up- 
per and under sides. One firm in Chicago 
has in use a wonderful new machine which 
performs most of these operations automati- 
cally. It casts the type, breaks off the jets, 
rubs down the two sides, dresses off the 
body and grooves the jet end of the type. 
The type are cast singly, and follow one an- 
other through channels, which contain the 
dressing and grooving devices, onto a long 
wooden stick. 

The work of the inspector, who now re- 
ceives the type, is the most trying and pains- 
taking of any in the shop. He sits before a 
big window and with a magnifying glass 
tightly clamped into his eye examines each 
type in the row, and if he sees a single de- 
A^t in any of them he picks the type out 



with a needle-like awl and it is returned to 
the melting kettle. Long years of experi- 
ence and keenness of vision enable the in- 
spector to detect imperfections that would 
never suggest themselves even to his asso- 
ciates in other divisions of the industry un- 
less their attention was especially directed 
to them. In the smaller sizes about one 
type in every twenty is thrown out, and 
sometimes even a greater proportion. 

The lines are now broken up into shorter 
lines and put up in "galleys" or "pages," 
about four and one-half by six inches in 
size. The full font weighs 100 pounds, and 
if smaller fonts are ordered these are di- 
vided into smaller pages, each having its 
due proportion of "sorts" of letters and 
characters. After being wrapped in paper 
and marked they are ready for shipment. 

A type font is sometimes measured by 
weight in pounds, and sometimes by the 
number of m's which it contains. Job fonts 
are always turned out by count. The pro- 
jiortion of letters in a font is interesting as 
showing how much more some letters are 
used than others. In a 3,000 lower-case m 
font of "minion 3," for instance, a type 
smaller than that from which this book is 
printed, weighing 280 pounds, there are 
9,000 a's, 2,000 b's, 4,000 c's, 5,000 d's, 
14,000 e's, 800 k's, and 500 j's. E is used 
more than any other letter in the alphabet. 
It is followed by t, with 10,000 ; then by i 
and a, with 9,000 each; then by s, with 
8,000. The least used letters are z, with 
300, and j and x, with 500 each. Of the 
numerals and 1 are most used, having 700 
each. Some of the fractions have fifty 
types to the font and the braces have only 
twenty-five each. 



THINGS WE ALL SHOULD KNOW 



399 



HOUSE OF LIQUID STONE. 

Thomas Edison, the wizard of elec- 
tricity, has succeeded in making it possi- 
ble to erect a solid concrete house in a 
single day at a cost of about $1,000 each. 

The one-day house owes its existence to 
the invention of iron molds, made of 
three-quarter-inch cast iron, nickel plated 
and polished inside. Early in the morn- 
ing these steel castings are taken to the 
vacant lot where it is desired to erect a 
house, clamped together Avith bolts, thus 
forming a house of iron with hollow walls. 

The Avorkmen now mix the concrete, 
one part cement, three parts sand, and 
three parts of quarter-inch crushed stone. 
A derrick raises the mixture to the top of 
the frame work, which is complete from 
cellar to rooftree, the various parts being 
held together by trusses and dowel pins. 
The concrete is pumped into the top of 
the molds continuously by compressed air, 
using two cylinders, and there must be no 
halt during this operation or a disfiguring 
line will appear. 




Courtesy Outdoor Life. 

AUTOMOBILE AS A BARBER SHOP. 

These queerest of builders keep pouring 
in the house until it overflows at the top. 
In twelve hours the house has been poured 
inside the iron frame — rooms, floors, 
stairs, window casings, fire-places, mantel 



and even the bath tub. In six days the iron 
frame is unbolted and removed; in an- 
other eight days the concrete is completely 
hardened and the house is ready for occu- 
pation. 




Courtesy of Outdoor Life. 

AUTOMOBILE AS KITCHEN AND SIDEBOARD. 

Strips of wood around the edges of the 
floors on Avhich to tack doAvn carpets, and 
some more around the walls for picture 
moldings, are put in place in the iron work 
before the house is poured in. 

The tiling around the fire-place and in 
the chimneys, the gas and water pipes are 
also stuck in the same way in the concrete 
walls; furnaces and heating pipes are also 
cast with the walls, so there is no plumbing 
bill. 

Any type of architecture may be fol- 
lowed in making the original molds, which 
are estimated to cost from $20,000 to 
$30,000 per set. These are, however, prac- 
tically indestructible and any number of 
houses can be made from the same molds 
at about $1,000 each. 

This concrete house has a cellar, is two 
stories high and contains seven rooms. 
There is no fire insurance necessary. To 
clean the house all that is necessary is lo 
take up the carpets, remove the furniture 
and turn on the hose. The pipes for the 
steam heat of this concrete house are so 
well insulated that only one-quarter of the 
usual amount of coal is necessary to heat 
the house thoroughly. 



NOTEWORTHY FACTS OF GREAT 
INTEREST 



PART III 



SETTLEMENTS AND MIGRATIONS OF NATIONALITIES 
IN THE UNITED STATES 



"From whence came we ?" may not be 
so interesting to us as, "whither do we go ?" 
but it offers some curious facts as to "who 
are we ?" 

At the close of the Kevolutionary War, 
there were probably but little more than 



three million persons composing the new 
nation. It is estimated that from the 
Declaration of Independence until the 
census in 1820, there were not more than 
250,000 immigrants, although there were 
enrolled at that time a total population of 




UBERTT BSUL, LEAVINQ PHJl,AJ)KLPHIA FOR A. GREAT EXPOSITION. 



402 



^otebuorthy FacU of All ffafions 



9,638,453, From that census up to 1902, 
there came into the United States a little 
more than 21,000,000 immigrants, from 
nearly a hundred different nations, thus, 
with the natural increase, bringing the 
population up to nearly eighty millions in 
1902. 

The colored race in the United States, 
being free from addition by immigration, 
except in the time previous to 1800, shows 
a remarkable ratio in the increase by birth, 
notwithstanding the fact that their death 
rate is estimated to be much greater than 
that of the white people. 

In 1790 there were 757,208 colored per- 
sons in the United States ; in 1840, 2,873,- 
648; in 1890, 7,470,040, and in 1902, an 
estimated number of about 9,000,000. They 
were first brought as slaves, 20 in number, 
to Jamestown, Virginia, in 1619. In 1624 
there were but 24 in the colonies ; in 1648 
there vrere 300. Then their service as to- 
bacco raisers caused them to be imported in 
great numbers. 

Although the Spaniards made permanent 
settlements at St. Augustine in 1565, at 
Santa Ye in 1581, and at Nevf Orleans in 
1763, they never increased in numbers and 
60 have made little impression on the gen- 
eral civilization of the country. 

The English began their settlement at 
Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607, but during 
the rule of Cromwell, the cavaliers or ad- 
herents of the Stuarts, came over in such 
numbers that their character vpas given to 
the social and political nature of the whole 
population. The descendants of these peo- 
ple moved west and their spirit dominated 
the western belt, covering Kentucky and 
Tennessee. 

Under the persecutions of the Stuarts, 
the Puritans to the number of about 21,000 



came to America, spreading from the first 
settlement made by them at Plymouth, in 
1620, among numerous branches. The 
descendants of these likewise moved west, 
and it is estimated that at least 13,000,000 
residents of the north trace their ancestry 
to those sources. 

The French came from Canada to the 
Mississippi Valley and finally made a per- 
manent settlement at Saint Louis in 1764.: 
They had come already, in 1718, in con- 
siderable numbers from the French West 
Indies to 'Sew Orleans. They have had 
no perceptible migrations, but their influ-l 
ence along the track of their first settle-1 
ments has been widely felt. 

The English Catholics came to St. I 
Mary's in Maryland, in 1634, and theii 
line of migration can be distinctly tracec 
along the Ohio Valley, but they chiefly 
populated the surrounding region. 

The English Quakers came to Philadel-^ 
phia in 1683 and their influence was foi 
nearly two centuries dominant throughout^ 
Pennsylvania. 

The English debtors and paupers who 
were taken to Savannah in 1733 went west- 
ward and settled the interior portions of 
Georgia and Alabama, the line extending 
on through into Arkansas and Missouri. 

The Dutch settled the present site of 
New York City in 1613. ISTot having a 
migrating character, they remained to be- 
come the chief social and commercial fac- 
tors of the metropolis. Three presidents of 
the United States are of that ancestry. 
Some of the poorer classes moved westward 
into Pennsylvania where they still retain 
many of their old customs. 

The Germans made their first settlement 
at Germantowm, near Philadelphia, in 
1683. The ground was bought from Will- 



^ote\uforthy Fact-r of Alt Rations 



403 



iam Penn bj Jacob Telner of Crefeld, a 
town on the lower Rhine near the boundary 
line of Holland. They were members of 
the sect known as Mennonites. Since then 
the immigration from Germany has exceed- 
ed that of any other nation. 

The Hebrews came first to K"ew York in 
1654, from Brazil, twenty-seven in number. 
Their baggage was seized on landing to pay 
their passage, and this not being sufficient, 
two of their number were seized and im- 
prisoned till the remainder was paid. On 
July 7, 1733, while Governor Oglethorpe 
and his colonists were assembled at a public 
dinner on the present site of Savannah, 
forty Hebrews from London sailed up the 
river, landed there and proceeded to make 
themselves at home. It created a sensation, 
both among the colonists and the London 
owners of the land, but Oglethorpe was 
Iheir friend and they remained to become 
the most influential citizens of the South 
Atlantic seaboard. 

In 1638 the Swedes formed a settlement 
on the Delaware Eiver, but were compelled 
to give up their charter to the land, between 
the encroachments of the Dutch and the 
claims of the Quakers. 

Italians, Chinese and other immigTants 
who did not come to make this country 
their home, nowhere havie become fixtures 
as citizens or influential factors in civiliza- 
tion, except in isolated instances. 

The ]S[orwegians were among the latest 
of the permanent additions to the popula- 
tion of the country. 

The Albany Patriot of October 24, 1825, 
contained the following news item: "On 
Saturday, as we are informed, the ISTor- 
wegian emigrants that lately arrived in a 
small vessel at N"ew York, passed through 
this city, on their way to their place of 



destination. They appear to be quite 
pleased Avith what they see in this country, 
if we may judge from their good humored 
countenances. Success attend their efforts 
in this asylum of the oppressed." 

These fifty persons were the first Nor- 
wegians to settle in the United States, and 
their destination was Murray, now Ken- 
dall, in Orleans County, ]S[ew York. Their 
line of migration was southwest, reaching 
as far as Central Illinois, with a few fami- 
lies in Kansas and Missouri. In later years 
they have settled in the states of the upper 
Mississippi valley. 

The Irish immigration began with the 
revolution and was without record, previous 
to the census of 1820. It was confined al- 
most wholly to the cities, of which New 
York was the center. No other nationality 
has had such a large share of influence on 
the politics of the Nation. 

According to the census of 1900, the 
principal foreig-n-born population of the 
United States was as follows: Germans, 
2,600,000; Irish, 1,780,000; British, 
1,245,000 ; Scandinavians, 1,040,000 ; Rus- 
sians and Poles, 700,000, and other miscel- 
laneous nationalities to the total of 10,- 
160,000. 

GREATEST FACTS IN THE 
HISTORY OF THE 

UNITED STATES 

Types of civilization in first settlements : 

The French at St. Louis, Feb. 15, 1764, 
at New Orleans in 1718. 

The Spaniards at St. Augustine, in 1565, 
and at New Orleans in 1763. 

The English cavaliers at Jamestown in 
the settlement made in 1607. 

The English Puritans at Plymouth in 
1620. 



J^otetvorihy Pacts of Ait Rations 



405 



The English Catholics at St. Mary's in 
1634. 

The English Quakers at Philadelphia in 
1683. 

English debtors and paupers, Savannah, 
in 1733. 

The Swedes at Wilmington in 1638. 

The Dutch at Xew York in 1613. 

The Germans at Germanto'wn in 1683. 

Declaration of Independence, July 4, 
1776. 

Articles of Confederation adopted 1777. 

Treaty of Peace between Great Britain 
and United States confirmed by Congress 
January, 1784. 

Adoption of Constitution of United 
States in 1787. 

Organization of Xorthwest 
Territory in 1787. 

Louisiana Purchase in 1803. 

War with Great Britain de- 
clared June, 1812. 

Purchase of Florida in 1819. 

Missouri Compromise in 
1820. 

Annexation of Texas in 1845. 

War with Mexico, 1846. 

Settlement of Boundary 
Question in Northwest, 1846. 

Acquisition of Xew Mexico 
and California in 1848. 

Discovery of gold in Cali- 
fornia in 1S49. 




Missouri Compromise of 1850. 

Civil War, 1861 to 1865. 

Emancipation Proclamation, Jan. 1, 
1863. 

Eeconstruction Act, March 2, 1867. 

Purchase of Alaska in 1867. 

Annexation of Hawaii, July, 1898. 

Spanish-American War in 1898. 

Cession of Philippines and Porto Rico 
in 1898. 

Philippine War begun Jan., 1899. 

HOW IMMIGRANTS COME TO 
AMERICA 

America, almost from the first days of 
the discovery of the continent, has been 
recognized as the place of liberty 
for the oppressed of all other 
countries. The magic word lib- 
erty has appealed to millions of 
people the world over, who have 
sought our shores as immigrants 
to find a new home in a land of 
freedom. For many years few 
limitations were placed upon in- 
coming strangers from foreign 
lands. But as their numbers 
increased and our public domain 
of unsettled lands diminished, 
it was realized that the wiser 
course was to limit the numbers 
and to improve the quality of im- 



■Kie BarUioldl Statue in New York Harbor, which greeu 



THE WORLI 
igrantB arriving ii 



from Europe, 



406 



J^otetvorlhy Pacts of Alt J^atiofis 



migration where possible. Chinese immi- 
gration was altogether forbidden, and cer- 
tain restrictions were adopted to safegTiard 
the nation from improper European immi- 
grants. 

It must be admitted, however, that in 
spite of legislation forbidding the importa- 
tion of laborers under contract and the ex- 
action of certain standards of health, intel- 
ligence, and money from the immigrants 
seeking admission, the conditions have not 
greatly improved. The influx of immi- 
grants from Hungary, Italy and Eussia of 
late years, has been enormous, while there 
has been a gradual reduction in the num- 
bers from Germany, Scandinavia and the 
British Isles, or the more desirable elements 
of population. Of course, it is to be ex- 
pected that Hungarians, Italians and Eus- 
sian Jews will develop into good American 
citizens at least in the second generation 
here, if not in the first. But they come 
to this country with but faint realization 
of the ideals and aspirations of Americans 
and little prepared for the liberty which 
rules here. They do not assimilate with the 
American and the Northern European ele- 
ments of our population, nor do they scat- 
ter into the country, but, forming their 
own communities in our great cities, they 
help to add to the puzzling problems which 
face our students of municipal life. 

The greatest number of immigrants 
reaching the shores of America enters by 
way of the port of New York. The first 
conspicuous object which greets them and 
for which they have been looking all the 
way across the Atlantic, for it is famed 
throughout Europe, is the great Bartholdi 
statue of "Liberty Enlightening the 
World," that splendid emblematic figure 
which rises from a little island in New York 



harbor to welcome the stranger. Most of 
the immigrants know something of the sig- 
nificance of the statue and it rarely fails 
to impress them. 

This famous statue was designed by Bar- 
tholdi, a great French sculptor, and was 
given to the people of the United States 
by the people of France. The site on Bed- 
lo's Island was set aside for it by the 
United States government, and the pedes- 
tal was erected by funds given by contrib- 
utors from all over the United States. The 
statue is made of thin sheets of copper 
beaten into shape and fastened about an 
iron skeleton. The figure of the statue 
itself is 110^ feet high and weighs 100,000 
pounds. The uplifted torch extends this 
height twenty-six feet more, and adding to 
this the pedestal, the tip of the torch is ele- 
vated 220 feet from the ground. The 
pedestal is of stone, eighty-two feet high. 
Some idea of the enormous proportions of 
the statue may be given from the fact that 
the forefinger is eight feet long and four 
feet in circumference at the second joint. 
The head is fourteen feet high, and forty 
persons can stand in it. The observation 
balcony around the torch, just below the 
flame, is a favorite viewpoint for travelers 
who wish to see the whole of New York 
City, with large portions of Long Island, 
the New Jersey coast, and New York har- 
bor spread out before them in one splendid 
panorama. 

Closely associated with the idea of lib- 
erty itself, is that splendid relic now con- 
sidered our chief emblem of independence, 
the old Liberty Bell of Pennsylvania. The 
order for the bell was given in 1751. The 
State House of Pennsylvania, in Phila- 
delphia, work on which had been suspended 
for a number of years, was then approach- 



^otetvorf^v FacU CifA.ll J^ation^ 



407 



^^ 


"1' 






.1 




kj^^^ 


_- 




^-1 


'^S 






r*?^"^* 






^H^^BI^^^^'kk^^ 


.' "^-' .^ 


''1 


fe. ^ . '^fi^^ 


? I 


Bii^*''^'-*' 


m 


1 


r ' ' §ii 


«^^^^ 






B^ 'a^5^ 


^ ■-# 


^^^^^^B^^BI^Jhr 


"-mmmJ 


1^ ^ 


jm^^ 


^ E. 1 


■ ■"■! 


~'*^' 


■; ; 



ing completion. A committee was ap- 
pointed to have a new bell cast for the build- 
ing, and the contract was awarded to a 
London manufacturer, the specification 
being that the bell should weigh 2,000 
pounds and cost £100. 

In August, 1752, the bell arrived, but 
though in apparent good order, it was 
cracked by a stroke of the clapper while 
being tested. The bell was recast, and the 
new bell was found to be defective also. 
Once again there was a recasting of the 
metal, with the alloy of copper in a new 
proportion, and this third effort was a suc- 
cess. 

It was on Monday, the 8th of July, 1776 
(not the 4th), that the bell rang out the 
memorable message of liberty and signaled 
the promulgation of the Declaration of In- 
dependence. It seemed strikingly prophetic 
that the bell should have been cast with 
the motto, "Proclaim liberty throughout all 
the land, unto all the inhabitants thereof." 
For fifty years the bell continued to be 
rung on every festival and anniversary, 
until it eventually cracked in July, 1835, 
when it was tolling for the death of Chief 
Justice John Marshall. 

Since that time the bell has been one of 
the chief attractions to Americans visiting 
Philadelphia, and its place in the State 
House has been a shrine for patriots. Of 
late years the bell has been a conspicuous 
attraction at the various great expositions 
held in the United States. Wherever it 
has been taken, to Chicago, Omaha, JTash- 
ville, Buffalo, Charleston or elsewhere, its 
journey has been a triumphal progress, and 
thousands of interested citizens have turned 
out along the way to watch its train in 
passing. Significant as it is, as a memo- 
rial of those colonial days when our fore- 



408 



J^oteivorthy FacU of All jWatt'on^- 



fathers were struggling for independence, 
this Liberty Bell and the Statue of Liberty 
seem linked together through the century 
by a common significance. 

IMMIGRATION STATISTICS 

The latest statistics of immigrants into 
the United States from all the world since 
1878 are given herewith. It is interest- 
ing to note the periods of fluctuation that 
mark the successive years. The increase 
from the end of the Civil War to the panic 
of 18Y3 was large and almost uninter- 
rupted. Then came a rapid decrease, and 
until the return of striking prosperity in 
1880, the numbers were comparatively 
small. The next few years showed enor- 
mous immigration, with 1882 as the high- 
est water-mark. Again, however, there was 
a steady decrease for a few years, although 
the tide turned in 188Y. When our last 
panic came, in 1893, it cut down immigra- 
tion very rapidly, and since that time, coin- 
cident with a more exacting administration 
of the immigration laws, the numbers have 
never again approached their highest point, 
although since 1898 there has been an an- 
nual increase. The figures for the years 
indicated follow herewith. It should be 
understood that the calculations are made 
at the close of each fiscal year, which ends 
with June 30. 

1878 138,469 

1879 177,826 

1880 457,257 

1881 669,431 

1882 788,992 

1883 603,322 

1884 518,592 

1885 395,346 

1886 334,203 

1887 490,109 

3 888 546,889 



1889 444,427 

1890 455,302 

1891 360'319 

1892 623,084 

1893 502,917 

1894 285,631 

1895 258,536 

1896 343,267 

1897 230,832 

1898 229,299 

1899 311,715 

1900 448,572 

1901 487,918 

1902 648,743 

1903 857,046 

1904 815,361 

1905 1,026,499 

1906 1,100,735 

1907 1,285,349 

1908 782,870 

1909 751,786 

1910 1,041,570 



OUR AMERICAN ARCHIVES AND 
NATIONAL INSTITUTIONS 

That which might be known as the 
archive of American relics is the Smith- 
sonian Institution or ISTational Museum at 
Washington. It attained its present form 
when, in 1881, the building now occupied 
was completed for the national relics that 
had been transferred from the Centennial 
Exposition and the old buildings of the 
Smithsonian Institution. Although the 
relics of the Museum and the Institution 
are housed together, and are under the same 
management, they are separate organiza- 
tions. So, with the ten million dollars 
given to the government by Andrew Car- 
negie for the establishment of a university 
of post-graduate scientific investigation, the 
three will be made to work together in har- 
mony, which, with the nearness of the great 



JWotettforihy Fact-t of All J>fation^ 



409 



Congressional Library, and the many bu- 
reaus of the government, such as the Fish 
Commission, Geological, Coast, and Geo- 
detic surveys, the Naval Observatory, and 
the Weather, Botanical, Biological and En- 
tomological Bureaus, will together make the 
greatest post-graduate university in the 
world. 

POPULATION AREAS OF THE 
UNITED STATES 

America's ''seat of empire" is found in 
the prairie region of the Central West, of 
which Chicago is the 
commercial metropolis. 
The flat or undulat- 
ing prairie, in its nat- 
ural state almost bare 
of trees, but covered 
with luxuriant grasses, 
now constitutes the top- 
ographic division of the 
United States which 
contains the greatest 
population. The prairie 
as the home of Amer- 
ican citizens has out- 
stripped all compet- 
itors. Neither the pop- 
ulous New England hills nor the great At- 
lantic coast plain, with its large cities and 
many thriving towns, nor yet the vast in- 
terior timbered region with all its wealth 
and opportunity, has kept pace with the 
beautiful prairie of the West. 

According to the geographers of the cen- 
sus bureau, continental United States is 
divided into nineteen regions, each having 
somewhat uniform physiographic features. 
The population of these regions and their 
percentage of the whole population of the 
United States is as follows: 



Population. Pet. 

Prairie region 13,300,970 17.5 

New England hills (in- 
cludes New York City 
and a strip of eastern 
New York State, also 

the Adirondacks) 10,260,153 13.5 

Lake region 9,571,215 12.6 

Interior timbered region. 8,129,760 10.7 

Piedmont region 6,809,103 9.0 

Coastal plain (east of 

Mississippi river) .... 6,427,635 8.4 

Allegheny plateau 6,070,246 8.0 

Appalachian valley 4,499,072 5.9 




POPULATION AREAS OF THE UNITED STATES. 



of 



Coastal plain (west 

Mississippi river) .... 1,974,677 

Coast lowlands 1,865,952 

Mississippi alluvial re- 
gion 1,227,094 

Ozark hills 1,203,880 

Coast ranges 1,079,992 

Great plains 1,052,719 

Pacific valley 995,363 

Rocky mountain 592,972 

Great basin 375,345 

Columbian mesas 356,758 

Plateau region 201,669 

It is the theory of scientific statisticians 

that geographic differences exert a profound 



2.6 
2.4 

1.6 
1.6 
1.4 
1.4 
1.3 
0.8 
0.5 
0.5 
0.3 



410 



J^oteivorthy Fact^s of All ^atioru 



influence upon the people subject to them. 
They contend, therefore, that a division of 
the country into well-marked natural re- 
gions affords a better basis for classifica- 
tion of the population of the United States 
than the political lines often arbitrarily 
run. !Nature, not man, fits a country for 
population, and the population will be 
great or small according to the advantages 
or disadvantages which nature herself has 
prescribed. Geology, topography, altitude, 
rainfall, temperature and soil — these are 
the determining factors. Thus dividing 




TAXIDERMIST AT WORK. 



the United States into natural rather than 
into political regions, it certainly is a note- 
worthy fact that at the beginning of the 
new century the prairie region stands first 
in the list. 

More than one-sixth of the whole pop- 
ulation of the continental United States 
lives upon the prairie. The people of the 
prairie equal one-third of the population 
of France. They are as many as the peo- 
ple of Germany, leaving out Prussia and 
Bavaria. They equal one-half of the popu- 
lation of England and Wales. They almost 
exactly duplicate, in number, the 
entire population of Mexico, and 
are but a little short of the total 
number in Spain. They outnum- 
ber the combined populations of Bel- 
gium and Holland. 

Strictly speaking, Chicago is not 
itself in the prairie region. Accord- 
ing to the geographers of the cen- 
sus, the great western metropolis 
stands within the lake region, a few 
miles from the line where the 
mighty prairies begin their stretch 
toward the west and south. This 
lake region is third in the list of 
great topographical divisions of the 
United States, and the two areas 
which lie on either side of Chicago 
contain together a population of 
nearly 23,000,000, or 30 per cent 
of the entire population of the 
United States. If to these two be 
added the interior timbered region 
lying near to Chicago on the south- 
east, and embracing most of In- 
diana, "Ohio and Kentucky, and 
small parts of Illinois, Tennessee 
and Missouri, it will be found that 
the three regions adjacent and 



ffoteiuforthy FacU of All JVation^ 



411 



tributary to Chicago comprise more than 
two-fifths of the people of the United States. 
It is worthy of note that the second most 
populous topographical region, the !N^ew 
England hills, is the section which gave 
blood and bone and sinew and spirit to the 
prairie and the other 
areas of the farther 
West. The ''star of 
empire" has taken its 
way from these hills 
to the timbered coun- 
try beyond the moun- 
tains, to the borders of 
the great lakes, to the 
mighty prairie. There 
io a homogeneousness be- 
tween the people of all 
four of these natural di- 
visions of the continent 
which cannot be found 
between any other pop- 
ulous areas ; and these 
four together furnish 
homes for 54 per cent 
of the people of the 
United States. 

FACTS ABOUT OUR 
POSTAL SERVICE 

Uncle Sam has many 
functions to perform in 
his capacity of govern- 
ing a great country. 
"With his army, he is 
a policeman; with his 
treasury department, he 
is a banker; with his agricultural depart- 
ment, he is a farmer; and with his mail 
service, he is a postman, to say nothing of 
a great many other functions of governing 



which might be named. In his capacity 
as a postman. Uncle Sam's mail routes now 
include the delivery of letters to the Phil- 
ippines, to the West Indies, and to Alaska, 
as well as all over the United States. Per- 
haps most difficult of all these mail routes, 




WORK tN THE CENSUS BUREAU. 



although not the longest, is that by which 
the miners and whalers in northernmost 
Alaska have their mail brought to them in 
winter. The Hu'dson's Bay Company for 



412 



/fotettforthy FacU of All /fation^ 



more than 100 years has been maintaining 
communication through the trackless wastes 
of western and northern British America, 
from trading post to trading post, all the 
way from Hudson's Bay to the Mackenzie 
Eiver, and far up into the Arctic Circle. 
But not until the discovery of gold in the 
hidden treasure houses of Alaska and the 
Canadian northwest, at Dawson City and 
K'ome and points even more remote, did 
Uncle Sam's postmen have to assume such 
labor. 

It was early in the spring of 1901 that 
the first carriers were sent to the farthest 
northern part of Alaska with the United 
States mail. Two men assumed the dan- 
gers of the journey a thousand miles over 
the ice fields, Francis H. Gambell and W. 
S. Flanagan. Their course was from St. 
Michaels to Kotzebue, returning by Cape 
Prince of Wales, Port Clarence, Teller, 
iN'ome, Golovin Bay and Norton Bay. 
They took with them but one sled, built of 
light birch and drawn by six Alaskan dogs. 
Their load included the mail, deer-skin 
sleeping-sacks, a shot-gun, snow-shoes, cook- 
ing utensils, a stove and other supplies, and 
their food itself, a total load of more than 
350 pounds, which would, of course, be les- 
sened day by day. 

They started on a bright day with the 
thermometer four degrees below zero, but 
were not lucky enough to find it so warm all 
the way. Sometimes it was sixty degrees 
below zero, with a blizzard blowing, in 
which event they had to seek such shelter 
as they could get under the snow or other- 
wise. Sometimes they had to flounder 
through soft snow and pack down a trail 
with their snow-shoes, so that the dogs and 
sled would not sink down into it. At other 
times they had a glazed surface of ice o'* 



snow-crust and under these conditions trav- 
eling was easier. 

Although Alaska is by no means a settled 
country, still it is not as lonesome as it 
was a few years ago, before the rush to the 
gold fields began. So sometimes the weary, 
half -frozen postmen would come to a little 
hut half buried in the snow, inhabited by 
Eskimos in some cases and at other times 
entirely deserted. Whatever the shelter, it 
was welcome. Frozen ptarmigan could be 
bought from the Eskimos for dog food, and 
the warmth of the hut was always grateful. 
Sometimes it was absolutely impossible to 
have a warm meal, even in one of the de- 
serted huts. Mr. Gambell tells of one even- 
ing when he fed the dogs on frozen salmon 
and frozen bacon and crawled into his 
sleeping sack, dressed as he had been on 
the trail, to eat his supper with his hood 
and mittens on. His tea got cold before he 
could drink it, the beans seemed never to 
have been warmed up, the fork froze to his 
lips, and the biscuits and doughnuts were 
so hard that he first cut them up with his 
ax, so that he might be able to eat them. 
But in the end his appetite was satisfied 
and he drew the fur hood of the warm 
sleeping-sack over him and retired to rest. 

At one of the native villages where they 
were hospitably received and given shelter 
by the Eskimos, they found the air in the 
hut so empty of oxygen that a coal-oil stove 
would not burn. The room was heated 
with seal-oil lamps, and the heat from the 
bodies of the human beings and dogs. Be- 
fore going to bed, the master of the house 
closed up the only opening. There were 
fourteen people and two young dogs in that 
one small room, while the odor from the 
seal-oil added to the stifling closeness of the 
air. A few days. later the postmen reached 



^otetttorthy Fact^ qf All /fatton^ 



4i: 



Kome, which was the last station on their 
great circuit, and there they found what 
seemed genuine civilization again, with 
town life going on after the American fash- 
ion, in spite of the remoteness of the place. 
The mails were coming in bv way of Daw- 
son City once a week, being carried 2,000 
miles by dog-team, and only two months old 
from home. These are the most remote and 
the most difficult mail routes which Uncle 
Sam's postmen have to travel, and they 
offer another indication of the remarkable 
ramifications of the services which a great 
government performs for its citizens. 



The United States postal service is the 
greatest of its kind in the world. It spends 
more money, employs more men, and inter- 
ests more people than any other institution 
ever established. In round numbers there 
are 75,000 postoffices and 250,000 employes. 
It handles annually ten billion pieces of 
mail matter, of which three billion are* let- 
ters. We spend on the service as much 
every five hours now as in an entire year of 
Washington's administration. 




CASES OF HIGHLY CONDENSED PROVISIONS, READY FOR SHIPMENT TO THE FAR NORTH. 



^oleitforthy jPactr qf All /fation^ 



4L5 



THE REGION OF THE YUKON 



''N^ever buy a pig in a poke," is the wise 
advice of our forefathers, and yet that is 
what the United States did when it gave, in 
1867, seven and a half millions in gold and 
useless war-vessels to Russia for the terri- 
tory known as Alaska. Xeither party to 
the transaction had the least idea what the 
territory was worth. Yet the advice of the 
old saying was this time at fault, for Alaska 
has already returned more than the amount 
of its purchase price in the fur trade alone, 
with its other vast resources almost un- 
touched. 

The Yukon River is two-thirds the length 



of the Mississippi, and drains a region a 
little more than one-third the size of the 
Alississippi Valley. In winter the water 
freezes to an average depth of five feet, but 
on the south side of the Yukon Basin, 
^■egetation grows luxuriantly in the sum- 
mer and cereals of the hardier kind may be 
made to yield bountiful harvests. 

The discovery of gold has caused the 
heretofore unknown regions to be widely 
explored and there is every reason to be- 
lieve that Alaska may support as prosper- 
ous a population as any of the Rocky Moun- 
tain States. Territorial laws have been 




GOLD PROSPECTING IN THE YUKON COUNTRY. 



416 



^oteteforthy FacU of All /Nations 



extended over every settlement, schools and 
churches have followed, until frontier and 
Arctic hardships have almost wholly given 
way to the comforts of civilization. 

GREAT FUR-TRADING 

COMPANIES OF CANADA 

Far away from the strife of contending 
political parties, and little visited by out- 
side affairs in the winter, sleeps under its 
coat of snow the vast kingdom of the fur- 
traders. Overhead is the dazzling bright- 







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mt 


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%.:: : ■■-»;,. ,v.-.' 



TRAPPERS AT WORK IN THE FAR NORTH. 



ness of a northern sky, which at night is 
covered to the very zenith with dancing 
auroras. In summer, for two, three, or 
more months, the streams are unbound, a 
luxuriant vegetation bursts forth, and the 
summer green is as intense as the wintry 
whiteness has been. 

Here the fur-trader must remain king. 
Mink and beaver, marten and otter, wolves, 
foxes and bears are his subjects, and, as 
in the case of all autocrats, the subjects 
exist for the profit of the ruler. 

Perhaps one-quarter of North America 
will always remain the 
fur - traders' preserve. 
If a line be drawn from 
Moose Factory, at the 
foot of Hudson's Bay, 
to Korway House, at 
the northern end of 
Lake Winnipeg, thence 
to Fort Resolution on 
the Great Slave Lake, 
and westward to the 
Stikeen River on the 
Pacific Ocean, the 
boundary of a region 
will be marked, to the 
north of which is the 
fur-traders' kingdom, 
which likewise includes 
the whole Labrador pen- 
insula east of Hudson's 
Bay. It is true this fur- 
traders' line has for two 
centuries been moving 
northward. Time was 



Great Lakes, from On- 
tario to Superior and 
Michigan, was the home 
of the trader. It -^as 



Xfoteivorthy Facts of All JSlafions 



417 



for the fur of this large area that the early 
governors of IsTew France and New York 
plotted and fought. So, later on, Kupert's 
Land, as the Arctic region of the north was 
called, was kept by the Hudson's Bay Com- 
pany closed under fur-trading conditions. 

Through the opening up of this region hy 
the Dominion of Canada, the fur-line was 
moved north four or five hundred miles. 
Perhaps from the physical condition of the 
country, as unsuited to agriculture and pos- 
sessed of a severe climate, the region north 
of the line traced above may always re- 
main undisturbed to the fur-trader. Of 
this, however, no one can speak certainly, 
for the same declaration was made of iSTew 
York, then of Canada, and later still of Ru- 
pert's Land. 

There is a strange fascination about the 
life of the fur-trader. Placed in charge of 
an inland fort, surrounded and ministered 
to by an inferior race, and the leader of a 
small band of employes, his decisions must 
be final, and his word taken as law. As 
a monarch of his solitude he has great re- 
sponsibility. His supply of goods must be 
obtained. There are places in the Yukon 
region where, hardly more than a decade 
ago, nine years were required from the time 
goods left London, until news of their re- 
ceipt reached the shippers in London. It 
required wisdom and foresight to manage 
a post so remote. 

In the busy season scores of Indians, 
squaws, and children may be seen m groups 
seated on the ground in the midst of the 
fort, their encampment being a group of 
tents, bark or skin, outside the stockade. 

Washington Irving, in 1818, described, 
in "Astoria," the pi«turesque and somewhat 
hilarious life of the fur-trader in the Xor*- 
wester capital of Montreal. Factors, trad- 



ers, and voyageurs reveled in their liberty 
till the advance of the season compelled 
the voyage to be again undertaken. They 
sang at Ste. Anne, as they entered the Ot- 
tawa River, "their parting hymn," prayers 
were said to the patron saint of the voy- 
ageurs, the priest's blessing was received, 
and they hied away to face the rapid, de- 
charge, or port.age of their difficult route. 
When Port William, on Thunder Bay, 
Lake Superior, was reached, they turned 
over their merchandise to new relays of 
men. 

Scattered throughout the whole fur-trad- 
er's territory will be found the half-breed 
of French-Canadian or Orkney origin. 
Some beautiful lake or sheltered bend in 
the river, or the vicinity of a trader's post, 
has been selected by him as his home, and 
partly as an agriculturist or gardener, but 
far more a hunter or trapper, he rears 
his dusky race. Sometimes, when the en- 
gag^ had served his score or two of years 
for the company, he retired with his Indian 
spouse and swarthy children to float down 
the streams to the older settlements, to what 
has been called "the paradise of Red 
River," and there, building his cabin on 
land allotted by the fur company, spent 
his remaining days. 

Whatever may be said of its influence 
on the white man, the fur-trade has been a 
chief means in cementing the alliance be- 
tween the white and red man. The half- 
breeds are a connecting link between the 
superior and the inferior race. 

For many years it was the inflexible reg- 
ulation of the Hudson's Bay Company to 
allow no half-breed to become an officer, but 
the rule could not be maintained, and on 
account of the Hudson's Bay Company 
having always assisted in the education and 



418 



J^Qtetvorthy Fac1>f of Ait f>fatwns 



Christianization of the native people, many 
of them have risen to high places in the 
fur-trade, as well as in other spheres of 
life. 

THE WALLED CITY 

OF THE NORTH 

"Quel bee!" (what a promontory) cried 



The Latin nations of Europe have always 
been very fond of giving nick-names to 
places newly discovered, especially if de- 
rived from some first impression of the 
scene, so "Quel bee," became Quebec, and 
has so remained ever since. Quebec, be- 
cause of its isolated position, has kept its ' 
ways with but little regard to the changes 




ICE JAM ON THE ST. LAWRENCE RIVER AT MONTREAL. 



a Gorman captain as he stood on the deck 
of his vessel and looked at the great wall of 
rock which lined the bank of the St. Law- 
rence. 



of modern civilization. It is the American 
Gibraltar, and, perhaps, could never have 
been taken by Wolfe if ]\Iontcalm had not 
heroically scorned to fight behind stone 



/fotebucrthy FacU of Alt /fation^ 



419 




CANADIAN BOATMEN IN THE RAPIDS OF THE ST. LAWRENCE RIVER. 



walls. Montcalm is buried in the Ursu- 
line Church founded in 1639. 

It is noted for the ancient beauty and 
venerable architecture of its chapels and 
churches. Here French and English in 
peculiar harmonv, considering racial preju- 
dices and differences in customs, labor and 
live side by side. Modern conveniences and 
scientific improvements make slow progress 
here and it is of all American cities the 
most like those of Mediaeval Europe. The 
religious customs of the people are every- 
where most in evidence and are the first to 
impress the visitor who is accustomed to the 
free and easy cosmopolitan ways of life in 
the United States. 

PILGRIMS AND SHRINES IN 
CANADA 

The shrine at Varennes is distinguished 
by the possession of a miracle-working pic- 
ture of Ste. Anne, that attracts great crowds 
of pilgrims. Yarennes has been a place of 
pious resort since 1692, and a beautiful 
church stands there, from which every year 



a solemn and stately procession, bearing the 
precious picture, sets forth, and, passing 
up and down the village street, makes glad 
the hearts of thousands assembled to do it 
honor. One other subsidiary place of 
pilgrimage is at the lovely little hamlet of 
I'Ange Gardien, just below the Falls of 
]\Iontmorenci, where there is a consecrated 
shrine of iN'otre Dame de Lourdes, having 
a statue of Our Lady, before which a per- 
petually burning light serves to symbolize 
her unwearying intercession on behalf of 
those who put their trust in her. 

But however deeply these shrines may 
be venerated, and however successful may 
be the prayers properly presented at them, 
they pale in interest before that of Ste. 
Anne de Beaupre, the oldest and most re- 
nowned of them all, kno-wTi par excellence 
as la Grande Sainte Anne, because of the 
surpassing number and brilliance of the 
miracles that have been wrought thereat, or 
as la Bonne Sainte Anne, in token of the 
high place it holds in the affections of the 
people. 



AMAZING WONDERS OF NATURE 



GREENLAND AND ITS GLACIERS 

When the h^-mnist wrote of Greenland's 
iej mountains he embodied in a phrase the 
extremes which nature exhibits in that in- 
hospitable land. Eric the Red, after being 
driven from Iceland for the murder of a 
brother chief, spent three years in exploring 
the more promising parts of Greenland, 
and, so grateful was he to this land of 
refuge, and so much brighter were the pros- 
pects here than in lava-stricken Iceland, 
that in contrast he gave it the name Green- 
land. 

In 1901 there were but 309 persons of 
foreign parentage in Greenland, and the re- 
mainder of the inhabitants were natives 
fewer in number than ten thousand. 

The center and the north and east are 
so covered with the ice accumulations of 
ages that no idea can be formed of the na- 
ture of the land. From the mountains there 
run down to the sea vast streams of ice 
which plow into the sea and become ver- 
itable ice-mountains, having indescribable 
elements of beauty. These great icebergs 
are cut. into such forms by wind and water 
as to keep the imagination busy with colos- 
sal images — caverns that seem limitless, 
cathedral spires and gothic arches, zigzag 
clefts as if made by earthquakes, all with 
changing hues that defy the brilliant 
changes of the opal and the colors of the 
r«Inbow. 



Usually a great river oi roaring water 
pours from underneath the sea cf ice. Some- 
times the icy lake spreads out in a 
valley several miles across, in which the ice 
is a thousand feet deep, and then it moves 
on through a gorge cutting its way with 
irresistible power. 

Denmark has never received much value 
from its possession of Greenland, and it is 
doubtful if this great island will ever con- 
tribute much more than it does now to the 
human race. 

^ .^ ^ 

ICELAND AND ITS GEYSERS 

Iceland is indubitably one of the most 
interesting spots on the face of the globe. 
Though as large as Ireland, it is in the 
interior a frightful desert; and it is 
only populated on its southwestern side by 
about 75,000 souls. Surrounded by stormy 
seas, which are generally covered with ice, 
this island, — with its tall, bare mountains, 
crowned with eternal snows and ice; its 
numerous precipices; its enormous lava 
fields, and the ever-present traces of fright- 
ful earthquakes and desolating eruptions ; 
without a tree, and, with the exception of 
the seaboard valleys, without vegetation, — 
produces a startling effect on the traveler. 

The geyser district lies at the foot of a 
steep but not very lofty hill, in a plain 
about ten miles in width, doubtless the bed 



422 



^yitnazing XOonder^ of J^alure 



of an old fiord, which runs down to the 
sea, and resembles an outspread green car- 
pet of marshy pasturage. It is watered by 
the Tugn flyot and several smaller streams, 
which fall into the Hvita at the end of the 
valley. In the northeast the plain is bor- 
dered by the Blaf ell, a lofty extinct volcano, 
whose summit is partially veiled by clouds, 
and whose steep sides, denuded of all vege- 
tation, display caverns and ravines filled 
with masses of snow. Round the plain are 
also other masses of jagged mountains, 
which, in the interior of the island, are 
piled up in gigantic forms; while Hecla, 
covered with its mantle of snow, proudly 
looks down upon the whole scene. The ele- 
vation of the springs above Reykjavik is, 
according to Bunsuirs calculations, about 



360 feet. The principal springs are situ- 
ated here close together, the two extremes 
being hardly 600 feet apart. 

The most noted of Iceland's geyser 
springs is that of Strokkur. Preced- 
ing each eruption there is the hollow 
sound of some vast drum struck by a thun- 
derbolt, then a mighty pillar of steam and 
spray rises with incredible force to the 
clouds. Following this a solid body of 
water rises to the height of 800 or a thou- 
sand feet. This eruption rarely occupies 
more than six minutes. 

The population of Iceland is quite sta- 
tionary at 75,000, and their exports are 
chiefly sheep, wool, dried fish, oil, eider 
do\vn, moss and seal skins. The only wild 
animal is the arctic fox. 




"OLD FAITHFUL," A GIANT GEYSER OP YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK. 



^^mazing XOonder^s of /Mature 



423 



THE GREAT LAVA DESERT OF 
ICELAND 

In the central region of Xorth Iceland 
is the most extensive solid lava desert in 
the world. On clear days the inhabitants 
living at the edge of the rocky tract of bar- 
renness can see in the great distance thin 
streams of smoke arising as if from the 
chimnev-tops of a city. This has es- 
tablished a firm conviction in the minds of 
the natives that a strange race of beings 
inhabit fertile valleys that lie between the 
volcanic peaks. The country aboimds in 
stories of adventures with those imaginary 
people. 

In 1876 the Danish government sent a 
scientific exploring party over the wastes 
and the myths were exploded as far as the 
more intelligent class of persons was con- 
cerned. However, the lava bubbles and vol- 
canic outbursts have left such curious shapes 
and figures all over the dreary wastes that, 
if the imagination is allowed the least free- 
dom, almost anything from the most hid- 
eous prehistoric creatures to well-arranged 
modern cities can be conjured up through 
the naked eye. Though a good field glass 
may dispel the given illusion, at the end of 
the range of the glass there will be another 
fully as startling. 

THE GULF STREAM 

Among the wonders of physical geog- 
raphy few are more interesting in their 
relation to this country than what is known 
as the Gulf Stream. This is an oceanic 
current of great extent, which takes its rise 
in the Gulf of ]Mexico, whence it derives 
its name. The peculiar formation and po- 
sition of this gulf render it a receptacle for 
the waters of the Atlantic, which sweep 



across the northeastern coast of South 
America; and, on arriving in the Gulf, 
they become warmed to a much higher tem- 
perature than is anywhere found in the 
surrounding ocean. The summer tempera- 
ture of the waters in the Gulf is about 
eighty-eight degrees, while in the open At- 
lantic, in the same latitude, it is only sev- 
enty-eight degrees. 

Thus warmed, the waters pass out of the 
Gulf northward, in a deep and strong cur- 
rent, between the coast of Florida on the 
one side and the islands of Cuba and the 
Bahamas on the other. The stream pro- 
gresses here with a velocity of five miles 
an hour. It rolls like a mighty river along 
the shore of Xorth America, widening as it 
flows, until it nears the banks of Xew- 
foundland, where it is turned aside, partly 
by the formation of the coast, which here 
projects boldly out, and partly by the en- 
counter with strong and adverse currents 
from the Xorth Atlantic. At the point 
where it is turned aside it stretches almost 
across the Atlantic; the current itself, ac- 
cording to some, being about two hundred 
miles in width, and the warm waters of the 
stream extending in all more than twice 
that distance. In the latter part of its 
course it leaves behind it that remarkable 
drift of sea-weed known as the Sargasso 
Sea. 

Crossing the Atlantic eastward, towards 
the islands of the Azores, the main stream 
gradually becomes lost, and its current 
spent ; but a portion of it continues north- 
ward towards the British Islands. Long 
after the current itself is lost the neighbor- 
ing seas continue very sensibly affected by 
the warm waters which it has brought down. 

It is important to bear in mind the dis- 
tinction between the actual current of the 



424 



^yimazin^ 'tOonder^ of /Mature 



Gulf Stream and the heated waters which 
are brought down by its agency. The range 
of the latter extends some hundreds of miles 
after what is properly termed the Gulf cur- 
rent has ceased, 

THE MAELSTROM 

The Maelstrom is a whirlpool off the 
coast of IS^orway, between the islands of 
Loffoden and Moskoe; and because of its 
proximity to the latter is sometimes called 
the Moskoestrom. Many stories have been 
written about it which border on the con- 
fines of the marvelous rather than of the 
truth. Poets have been busy with the fact 
of its existence, and ancient legends have 
told with wonderful exactness how heroes 
have dived into the vortex in order to show 
their zeal for their lady loves, and how vir- 
tue and courage have come unharmed out of 
the great depths, while wickedness and vice 
have so weighted men that they have been 
overwhelmed in the whirlpool. Old-world 
thought led to the belief that at the spot 
where the Maelstrom was there was a great 
hole in the earth, through which the water 
poured, and that those things or men which 
were engulfed in the pool were either passed 
through the earth to its other side or were 
returned broken and drovraed to the place 
whence they came by a return coil in the 
mysterious water spiral. Water -jotuns, or 
water giants, were of course supposed to 
preside over the whirlpool, and to arrange 
according to the dictates of their own fancy 
who should be saved and who destroyed. 
One hero whom they permitted to re-visit 
the upper world was speechless ever after, 
unable, by sign or word, to give an account 
of the marvelous things he had seen. Many 



a ship was sucked down into the watery 
grave, many a fair cargo lost, and yet the 
water-demon was not satisfied; no amount 
of sacrifices seemed to propitiate the hun- 
gry ocean gnomes. 

Modern science, with its secret-searching 
light, has scared the water-demon from his 
lair, and has given an explanation of the 
causes of the whirlpool, quite incompatible 
with the existence of such a contrivance as 
the Maelstrom was represented to be. When 
the configuration of the land between 
Droutheim and the ISTorth Cape is seen it 
will not surprise any one that the rush of 
the tide, cooped up as it is in its passage 
through the Loffoden Islands, should result 
in a wash of the whirlpool I'ind. The strong 
tide flowing down from the northern sea is 
caught in a rocky angle, which causes a 
kink in the stream, twisting it round with 
violence enough to cause the Maelstrom, the 
most dangerous whirlpool in the world. The 
whirlpool is thus described by an American 
writer : "I had occasion, some years since, 
to navigate a ship from the North Cape to 
Droutheim, nearly all the way between the 
islands, or rocks, and the main. On inquir- 
ing of my ISTorwegian pilot about the practi- 
cability of running near the whirlpool, he 
told me that with a good breeze it could be 
approached near enough for examination 
without danger, and I at once determined 
to satisfy myself. We began to near it about 
10 a. m. in the month of September, with 
a fine leading wind 1^. W. Two good sea- 
men were placed at the helm, the mate on 
the quarterdeck, all hands at their stations 
for working the ship, and the pilot standing 
on the bowsprit between the night-heads. I 
went on the main topsail-yard with a good 
glass. I had been seated but a few minutes 
when my ship entered the dish of the whirl- 



^maxin^ tOonders of /Mature 



425 



pool. The velocity of tlie water altered her 
course three point* towards the center, al- 
though she was going eight knots through 
the water. This alarmed me extremely for 
a moment. I thought that destruction was 
inevitable. The vessel, however, answered 
her helm sweetly, and we ran. along the 
edge, the waves foaming round us in every 
form while she was dancing gaily over 
them. The sensations I experienced are 
difficult to describe. Imagine an immense 
circle running round, of a diameter of a 
mile and a half, the velocity increasing as 
it approximated towards the center, and 
gi-adually changing its dark blue color to 
white, — foaming, tumbling, rushing to its 
vortex ; very much concave, as much so as 
the water in a funnel when half run out ; 
the noise too, hissing, roaring, dashing, — all 
pressing on the mind at once, presented the 
most awful, grand, solemn sight I ever ex- 
perienced. We were near it about eighteen 
minutes, and in sight of it two hours." 

THE SPECTRE OF THE BROCKEN 

The beautiful, deceptive phenomenon 
known as the mirage is of three distinct 
kinds. First, there is that form of it where 
some distant object, below the line of the 
horizon, and consequently out of the range 
of vision, seems to be lifted up into mid-air, 
and to hang suspended there, — sometimes 
in its natural position, sometimes upside 
down, and sometimes both ways at once; 
the image in this latter case being doubled, 
like a ship and its reflection in the water. 
Secondly, there is that form of it where 
some object high up in the air, such as a 
cloud or a village on a hill, seems to be 
brought down and to lie floating in a vast 



lake stretching miles away at the spectator's 
feet. Thirdly, there is that less frequent 
form of it, where the setting sun appears to 
fling huge shadows of terrestrial objects far 
out into space. 

The mirage, in which the object is 
brought down instead of being elevated, is 
most frequently seen in the arid deserts of 
Lower Egypt, where it often proves cruelly 
deceptive to the thirsty traveler. Dotted 
about the waste are elevations, on which the 
natives have built their villages, in order 
that they may be safe from the flood during 
the periodical inundations of the Xile. In 
the heat of the day the mirage brings down 
an image of the sky upon the level, some 
few miles in front of the caravan, and pro- 
duces the effect of a broad expanse of water, 
in which each village, brought down also, 
appears as an islet. Lured on by the re- 
freshing prospect, man and beast push hope- 
fully forward, often miles out of their 
track, to find the waters and islands con- 
stantly receding from their view, until the 
evening comes, and they vanish altogether. 
So complete is the illusion that not only 
experienced and scientific travelers, but 
even the Arabs themselves, are often de- 
ceived by it. 

The third kind of mirage is seen only 
from the top of the Brocken, the highest 
summit of the Harz llountain range in 
Hungary. It is there known as the Brock- 
engespenst, or ''Spectre of the Brocken ;" 
and very spectre-like it looks in the red 
evening sun. You no sooner step out upon 
the plateau on the top of the hill than your 
■shadow, gTim and gigantic, is apparently 
flung right out against the eastern sky, 
where, with all visible space for a play- 
ground, it flits swiftly from place to place, 
following your every movement. It is only 



426 



^mazing XOonderj of /Mature 



in the evening just before sunset that the 
phenomenon is visible, so that the shadow 
is doubly exaggerated, first by the distance 
and level of the sun and then by the dis- 
tance of the surface upon which it is pro- 
jected. 

Each of these different kinds of mirage 
has its own separate cause, though they all 
depend for their existence upon a special 
state of the atmosphere. Before the phe- 
nomenon is possible the air must be divided 
into strata of different degrees of density. 
That done, the mirage follows, sometimes 
by refraction, sometimes by reflection, 
sometimes by the projection of shadows. 
^ ^ ^ 

FAMOUS FOUNTAINS OF 
PALESTINE 

ITearly every pool or spring about Jeru- 
salem is of sacred historical note in some 
form of legend or story. The best known of 



these is the Pool of Bethesda. It lay close 
by the wall of the city at the sheep's gate 
and the word meant "house of mercy or 
place of flowing water." Porches and colon- 
nades were in bible times built about it so 
that the people could protect themselves 
from the sun. 

It was believed by the people that at fre- 
quent intervals an angel came down and 
troubled the waters, after which they had 
healing qualities. Here is where Christ 
told the sick man to take up his bed and 
walk. 

This pool is now called Birkeh Israel and 
the gate near by is called St. Stephen. Little 
regard is paid to it by the natives and it is 
in ruins, 

Ain Selwau is the name now given to the 
fountain by which the Lord stood when He 
said, "If any man thirst, let him come to 
me and drink." It is mentioned by the 
prophet as "the waters of Shiloah that go 




AMERICAN TOTJRIST PARTT IN PALESTINE. 



,yiinazin£ XOonder^ of Mature 



427 



softly." It was to this pool that Christ 
sent the blind man to be healed. 

A church was built over it in the middle 
ages, but it was destroyed by the Moham- 
medans. On its banks stands a mulberry 
tree said to mark the spot where the prophet 
Isaiah Avas slain by Manasseh. 

In a shallow vale by the Jaffa gate be- 
yond the olive groves near Jerusalem is 
Birkeh el Mamilla, which was known as the 
fountain of Gihon to which Solomon rode 
on King David's mule, when Zadok the 
priest took the horn of oil out of the 
tabernacle, and annointed Solomon, as the 
people cried, "God save King Solomon." 
Xear by this ruined fountain is the potter's 
field bought with the blood money of Judas. 

Over toward Jericho is the fountain of 
Elias, much famed for its healing power 
in bible times ; further on in the fertile val- 
ley of Kedron, on the boundary line between 
Judah and Benjamin, is the most famous 
pool of modern Palestine. Its Arab name 
means Fountain of the Mother of Steps. 
The Jews call it En Rogel ; that is, to tread, 
from the custom of treading linen in the 
water. This pool is 360 feet in length and 
130 feet in width. Here is where Jonathan 
remained when he sent the little maid to 
bear a message to David, who had fled from 
the power of his son Absalom. 

It was from the Roman tower Antonio, 
near by, that St. Paul made his memor- 
able speech to the Jews. This tower is still 
standing, though half in ruins. Here St. 
James was slain. 

The Christians have named this the 
Fountain of the Virgin, for here the mother 
of Jesus came with other Jewish girls to 
cleanse the linen. To this day the beautifiil 
stream of pure water flowing from this 
spring is used for the same purpose, and 



troops of large-eyed oriental girls are seen 
working about the pool and stream just as 
has been done here by the girls of Jeru- 
salem for two or three thousand years. 



SAGHALIEN, A PARADOX OF 
CLIMATE 

Saghalien belongs to Russia, and is sep- 
arated from the mainland of Eastern Asia 
by the Gulf of Tartary. 

The island is bathed by two cold ocean 
currents, and in winter nothing protects it 
against the icy northwest winds coming 
from Siberia. At the sea level the snow 
falls continually, and stays on the ground 
till the end of May, and the seashore is very 
cold. Further inland, however, especially 
as we go higher up, the climate is modified 
— just the opposite to what is observed else- 
where. It has often been observed in Siberia 
and in Central Europe that im winter the 
cold is greater in the plains and the valleys, 
and that the highlands have a sensibly 
milder temperature; it is as if the denser 
cold air accumulated in the lowlands. This 
fact is very often observed in our climate ; 
there are several very good examples of it ; 
all the trees and shrubs of a valley have 
been known to be killed by frost, while 
above a certain level, very clearly marked 
out, on the hill or the mountain, the vegeta- 
tion has not suffered at all. The cold air 
often flows from the summits toward their 
bases. This is what takes place at Saghal- 
ien. The cold air accumulates in the low 
regions of the island and on the coast ; the 
higher regions have a mere elevated tem- 
perature. So it happens that the lower 
parts have an arctic vegetation, while the 
intermediate altitudes have the vegetation 



428 



.^ytmaxing XOonder.s of Mature 



of a temperate zone, sometimes almost 
sub-tropical. The birch, the ash, the pine, 
the fir abound in the low regions and form 
often impenetrable forests, but toward the 
center of the island appear bamboos, 
hydrangeas, azalias and other plants that 
one is greatly surprised to meet, and whose 
presence can be explained only by the alto- 
gether abnormal climatic conditions of the 

island. 

j« ^ jt 

THE ARABIAN DESERT 

Arabia meets Palestine on the north, and 
from these lands have flowed the influence 
of Moslem and Christian Avell-nigh covering 
the world. As Jerusalem is the sacred city 
of many millions of Christians, so is Mecca 
the sacred city of many millions of Mo- 
hammedans. ISTot only have two of the 
great religions come from this small terri- 
tory of habitable land, but it was once the 
garden from which came the seed of civili- 
zation. 

Poets have sung of these lands, romancers 
have written of them and pious priests have 
glorified them till in our imagination they 
are the realms of pearl and amber, redolent 
with the fragrance of aromatics, spices, 
frankincense and myrrh. 

The poets have been the geographers, and 
on epic authority we are assured that it is 
a paradisiac region laden with the inspira- 
tion of divine perfumes. 

''To them who sail 
Beyond the Cape of Hope, and now are 

past 
Mosambic, off at sea northeast winds blow 
Sabean odors from the spicy shores 
Of Araby the blest ; and many a league, 
Cheered with the grateful smell, old Ocean 

smiles." 



Here in truth is the dream-land of the 
world, replete with scenes made awesome 
through sacred song and story. 

Strange remnants of Christian and Mos- 
lem occupation still remain almost un- 
changed. 

About nine days of camel travel into the 
desert from Suez brings the traveler to 
one of these remnants, a spot of impressive 
loneliness and desolate grandeur at the foot 
of Sinai. It is the convent of St. Catherine, 
made like the stronghold of a castle with 
battlements on which are mounted ancient 
guns. The approach of strangers is guarded 
with all the ceremony of medieval times, 
when the least relaxation of caution or vig- 
ilance might mean destruction. Those ap- 
proaching come up through the groves of 
cypress trees to the massive stone walls, 
where there is nothing but silence and no 
moving creature is to be seen. Back of the 
convent the perpendicular sides of the rocky 
cliffs rise to the height of a thousand feet 
and add to the solemnity of the scene. 

After repeated calls a port hole is opened 
about 30 feet above the heads of the visit- 
ors, the face of a monk appears, and, after 
surveying the visitors stolidly for a few 
minutes, he lowers a rope from a windlass. 

The letter of introduction from the con- 
vent at Cairo, which is indispensable, is 
fastened to the cord and it is drawn up. 

This much of the customs has yielded to 
the improvement of government and the 
safety of modern times; they no longer 
draw the visitors up by the windlass, but 
after reading the letter a gate is at last 
opened and the visitor allowed to enter the 
court. Moses being a holy man alike to 
Christians and Mohammedans, there are 
both chapels and mosques about the place 
where the commandments were given. How- 



^^■maxin^ tOonders of ^atur 



429 



ever, witli sectarian perversity the Christian 
has decided on one mount as the scene of the 
handing down of the law to Moses and the 
Mohammedans another. 
Mount Horeb is the one 
generally agreed upon 
by Christendom. 

^ ^ Jl 



domes, spires and arches of pure granite, 
contrasted with soft 1x)nes of green forest 
and silver lake. Of all these wonders the 
great trees themselves of the Mari- 
and the Calaveras groves are, 
perhaps, the most 
conspicuous and 
the most widely 
known objects o f 
curiosity. They are 
the oldest living 




THE GREAT 
TREES or 

CALIFORNIA 

All the world has 
heard of the big trees 
of California, and 
those astonishing 
groves of forest giants 
which have attracted 
strangers from far and 
near to view their won- 
ders. California is a 
state of great things, 
with its coast-line as 
long as that which 
stretches from Massa- 
chusetts to Georgia, its 
mountains which are 
surpassed on this con- 
tinent only by a few 
Alaskan peaks, its 
gold mines, its orange 
groves, and its smiling 
valleys devoted to farm- 
ing, all rivals in mag- 
nitude as the sources 
of greatest wealth, and 
its Yosemite Yalley 
with the great cataract 
that plunges 1,500 
feet sheer in one of t^ 
its three downward 

Ipanta nr\^ itc f/^Thq<^al '^'^^ Ineenfoys picture, In Vhl'eh thje"artisf'showa"o9e"o? tiie"btgTr'^'"'aMarenUy 
leaps ani its colossal growing m a city street, depicts how nature's work overtopf thafof mUL ^ 



TWO GIANTS IN COMPARISON. 
.Temple, Chicago,_ 302 feet in height and Big Tree, 400 feet high. 



430 



^^tnaxin^ ^tOonders of feature 



things in the world. The best scientific esti- 
mates place the age of the oldest at about 
5,000 years, and thus make them survivors 
of the Miocene period. It taxes the im- 
agination to conceive the age that this means 
and the natural history of our globe which 
these grizzly giants have witnessed. With 
the danger of their complete extinction 
threatened as it seems to be, they become 
doubly interesting to us all. 

Students of the groves declare that these 
big trees of California are not akin to any 
other trees now growing, except some of 
their own neighbors. Only by comparison 
with certain fossil remains of cone-bearing 
trees was the proper relationship found, and 
the kings of the forest were discovered to be 
species of the genus Sequoia. In deference, 
therefore, to the name of our greatest citi- 
zen these greatest of trees were named Se- 
quoia Washingtoniana. Popularly speak- 
ing, however, the name Sequoia Gigantea 
has come to be accepted as the characteriza- 
tion of these monsters. 

It was just about the time of the rush of 
the forty-niners to California in the days of 
gold discoveries that these trees were found. 
According to the scientists, the Sequoias 
covered great areas of America and Europe, 
far back in the mysterious, moist days of 
the Miocene period when all vegetation took 
strange, gigantic forms. When the age of 
ice came and our continents were SAvept by 
the glaciers that have left their tracks in 
every direction some of these ancient forms 
of vegetable life were exterminated, some 
were left as fossils and a few have come 
down to us in visible forms upon the sur- 
face of the earth as living things. 

These two groves of big trees may be 
considered as small islands, upon which 
they were left in safety after the great up- 



heavals of nature that passed around them. 
Here they have survived through all inter- 
vening thousands of years, so that today 
they have the distinction of being virtually 
the only survivors of a geologic age that is 
past. In addition to the two most famous 
groves, the Mariposa and the Calaveras, 
there are some other tracts in California 
which contain groves of Sequoias, although 
not the largest ones. Altogether there are 
200,000 or 300,000 of the species, but of 
those remarkable for their gTeat size not 
more than 500. 

A common height for the pines, firs and 
cedars, which grow in the same forests, 
themselves noteworthy specimens of their 
own variety, is from 175 to 200 feet, but 
these are overtopped at least a full hundred 
feet by the big Sequoias that grow beside 
them. There are trees in the Mariposa 
groves which are nearly thirty feet through, 
and a great many between ten and twenty 
feet. Inasmuch as the largest trees are still 
standing, it is impossible to count their 
rings and measure their age exactly. But 
one tree that was cut down was found to be 
2,200 years old, and another that had fallen 
to the force of the winds showed an age of 
4,000 years. It is a fair estimate, there- 
fore, that the larger ones still are at least 
5,000 years old, and this agrees with the 
calculations as to the period whence they 
date. 

Mr. John Muir, who has studied the trees 
and mountains and glaciers of the west with 
affectionate energy, calls attention to the 
vitality and vigor of these trees, and the 
fortunate way in which nature has pro- 
tected them. The bark is thick and fibrous, 
and all but fireproof, so that forest fires 
have not been able to destroy the trees. The 
wood, too, does not decay, and fungus does 



^ytmazin^ XOonder.s of feature 



431 



not, tkerefore, thrive upon it. Even tlie 
trees that have fallen have lain soiind for 
centuries. 

The threat of extinction of the great trees 
comes from two causes. They are not in- 
clined to rear new trees from seedlings, to 
reproduce their own groves, and the fine old 
trees themselves in many instances have been 
attacked by the lumbermen holding the land 
upon which they grow. The Mariposa gTOve 
is now owned and protected by the State of 
California, and there is an effort under way 
to purchase the Calaveras grove as a gov- 
ernment park. But by far the greater num- 
ber of the big trees are on land owned by 
the lumber companies, and many of them 
are at work on the Sequoia timber. The 
people of California are becoming aroused 
to the great value of these forest giants, as 
sources of interest for the tourists who flock 
to their state, and it is to be hoped that the 
vandalism which is threatening the exist- 
ence of some of the finest specimens will be 
put an end to by the influence of public 
opinion and the purchase of the property 
for permanent preservation. The wood is 
not particularly valuable as timber, and it 
seems a manifest truth that the big trees, 
considered entirely as an investment for the 
state, would yield more as living curiosities 
than as lumber piles. 

HOW GLACIERS AND ICEBERGS 
ARE MADE 

Great mountains of snow and ice, which 
float down into the Korth Atlantic Ocean 
from the Arctic regions t-o threaten the 
safety of vessels crossing from America to 
Europe, are among the most peculiar and 



interesting of the works of nature. The 
land of their birthplace in the far north is 
not reached by many travelers, except the 
Arctic explorers themselves, but instead of 
the traveler coming to the iceberg the ice- 
berg comes to the traveler, thus reversing 
the famous experience of Mahomet and the 
mountain. 

The coasts of Greenland are the birth- 
place of the greatest icebergs that come into 
the Atlantic Ocean. They are produced 
from the glaciers which fill the valleys of 
this frozen land. 

The story of the glaciers, from which ice- 
bergs are but offshoots, is an interesting one. 
A great weight of snow pressing downwards 
through crooked mountain valleys is 
squeezed between the rocky walls and grad- 
ually converted into ice. The great body 
of the glacier, which is neither snow nor ice, 
but both, creeps along and molds itself to 
its bed. But in changing its shape and 
slope its surface is broken by deep crevasses, 
which begin as simple cracks. These crev- 
asses are caused by the tension or pull of 
the lower mass of ice upon the upper, and 
consequently they generally occur trans- 
versely or obliquely up-stream. Dirt accu- 
mulates in the crack until the whole mass 
closes by being pushed into a new position. 
Elevations in the bed of the glacier thus 
leave a permanent record in the ice which 
breaks above them. This record is carried 
on the center of the stream, which moves 
faster than the margin, and consequently 
these dirt-lines, which mark the former 
crevasses, gradually become bow-shaped, un- 
til they almost touch each other at the mar- 
gin. Viewed from above, the effect is very 
striking, and these dirt-bands, as one may 
call them, appear sometimes like the 
graining on a slab of oak. When the 



432 



,yifnaxing ^tOonderji of Mature 



crevasse fills with snow instead of dirt the 
bands are white instead of grey. The newly- 
fallen snow on the mountain tops is grad- 
ually made firm by pressure. Slowly, al- 
most imperceptibly, it begins to glide down 
the slopes ; air, before imprisoned, escapes, 
and the snow hardens. After a time the 
mass reaches a steep slope, confined in a 
valley, and then pressed down from behind 
and from the sides, it changes into clear, 
blue ice, streaked with little veins where the 
air has not been expelled. And so a little 
tongue of ice begins creeping down the val- 
ley until it swells into a great river, termi- 
nating in a vertical wall hundreds of feet 
in height. As the long, sinuous band of ice 
continually creeps down from the mount- 
ains the topmost portion moves faster than 
the ice below, and finally a piece breaks off, 
either on the mountain side or in the sea, 
if the flow has traveled so far. In this way 
the smaller icebergs are formed. 

"Calving" of icebergs, as the breaking off 
of blocks from the parent glacier is called, 
is produced by the action of the tide. Up- 
ward and downward pressure, exerted by 
water at the rise and fall of the tide, on 
submerged portions of the glacier front, 
forces off a strip of ice, which floats away 
as a berg. 

The Humboldt Glacier, sixty miles in 
length, is the most celebrated in Greenland, 
and has a perpendicular face of 300 feet. 
The glacier was discovered by Dr. E. K. 
Kane, TJ. S. K, in 1853. We take the lib- 
erty here to quote from Dr. Kane's book, 
"Arctic Explorations," his striking descrip- 
tion of it. "My recollections of this glacier 
are very distinct. The day was beautifully 
clear on which I first saw it, and I have a 
number of sketches made as we drove along 
the view of its magnificent face. Tbey dis- 



appoint me, giving too much white surface 
and badly fading distances, the grandeur of 
the few bold and simple lines of nature be- 
ing almost entirely lost. I will not attempt 
to do better by florid description ; men only 
rhapsodize about Niagara, and the Ocean. 
My notes speak simply of the 'long, ever- 
shining line of cliff diminished to a well- 
pointed wedge in the perspective,' and again 
of 'the face of glistening ice, sweeping in a 
long curve from the low interior' ; the facets 
in front of the cliff rose in solid glassy wall 
three hundred feet above water-level, with 
an unknown, unfathomable depth below it, 
and its curved face, sixty miles in length, 
from Cape Agassiz to Cape Eorbes, van- 
ished into unknown space at not more than a 
single day's railroad travel from the Pole. 
The interior with which it communicated, 
and from which it issued, was an imsur- 
veyed mer de glace, an ice-ocean to the eye, 
of boundless dimensions. It was in full 
sight—the mighty crystal bridge which con- 
nects the two continents of America and 
Greenland. I say continents, for Greenland, 
however insulated it may ultimately prove 
to be, is in mass strictly continental. Its 
least possible axis, measured from Cape 
Farewell to the line of this glacier, in the 
neighborhood of the 80th parallel, gives a 
length of more than twelve hundred miles, 
not materially less than that of Australia 
from its northern to its southern cape. Im- 
agine, now, the center of such a continent, 
occupied through nearly its whole extent by 
a deep, unbroken sea of ice, that gathei's 
perennial increase from the water-shed of 
vast snow-covered mountains and all the 
precipitations of that atmosphere upon its 
own surface. Imagine this, moving onward, 
like a great glacial river, seeking outlets at 
every fiord and valley, rolling icy cataracts 



.^maxifig VC^onder^r of J^aiure 



433 



into the Atlantic and Greenland seas ; and 
having at last reached the northern limit of 
the land that has borne it up, pouring out a 
mighty frozen torrent into unknown Arctic 
space. It is thus, and only thus, that we 
must form a just conception of a phenom- 
enon like this great glacier. I had looked, 
in my own mind, for such an appearance, 
should I ever be fortunate enough to reach 
the northern coast of Greenland. But now 
that it was before me, I could hardly realize 
it. I had recognized, in my quiet library 
at home, the beautiful analogies which 
Forbes and Studor have developed between 
the glacier and the river. But I could not 
comprehend at first this complete substitu- 
tion of ice for water. It was slowly that the 
conviction dawned on me that I was looking 
upon the counterpart of the great river sys- 
tems of Arctic Asia and America. Yet here 
were no water feeders from the south. 
Every particle of moisture had its origin 
within the Polar circle, and had been con- 
verted into ice. Here was a plastic moving, 
semi-solid mass, obliterating life, swallow- 
ing rocks and islands, and plowing its 
way with irresistible march through the 
crust of an investing sea." 

The glaciers from which the bergs break 
off crop out all along the Greenland coast. 
On the other side of America, on the Alas- 
kan coast, are other great glaciers, one of 
them, the Muir Glacier, being frequently 
visited by summer tourists in excursion par- 
ties up the Alaskan coast. But these Alas- 
kan glaciers do not send their iceberg chil- 
dren far down into the track of vessels in 
the Pacific Ocean, as do those of Greenland 
into the Atlantic. 

Up to the middle of August travelers 
crossing the Xorth Atlantic are very liljely 
to see the fragments of these great moun- 



tains of ice which have floated down from 
Baffin Bay and have not yet entirely melted 
under the influence of the warm weather. 
During some seasons these icebergs form a 
source of considerable danger to ships, and 
more than one collision between a great At- 
lantic liner and these navigators from the 
Arctic have been reported in the list of ma- 
rine disasters in recent years. Frequently 
the icebergs bring with them a local fog 
Avhich screens them for miles around like 
a loAv hanging cloud. This results from the 
contact between the warm, moist air rising 
from the ocean, and the cold rays radiated 
from the great body of ice. "When a ship 
enters a fog in the ISTorth Atlantic, at such 
a season, the navigator watches for icebergs 
quite as carefully as for other vessels. He 
has two sources of warning when danger 
threatens. From the icebei'g itself, the 
sound of the steamer's whistle is echoed 
back to him so that he may judge the direc- 
tion of the berg and may estimate its dis- 
tance by the time required for the return of 
the echo. As he draws nearer, steaming 
slowly through the fog, a delicate thermom- 
eter prepared for the purpose on the bridge 
of the vessel, responds to the cold given off 
from the frozen mass, and the mercury falls 
rapidly. It is at such times that the skill 
and caution of an able navigator are dis- 
played. 

Let us trace the history of one of these 
great icebergs from the time it has broken 
loose from the parent glacier to float away 
into the waters of Baffin Bay, Davis Strait 
and Smith Sound. Seven-eighths of the 
weight of the iceberg is under water and 
one-eighth of it above. "Wlien we see an 
iceberg which extends a hundred feet, or, 
pexhaps, much m.ore above the water, we 
know tha't it is practically seven times as 



434 



^^mazing tOonder^ of J^ature 



great below the surface. This suggests the 
enormous mass of ice and indicates the dan- 
ger which it threatens to a colliding vessel. 
The current acting upon this mass under 
water causes irregular pieces to be detached. 
Thus the balance of the berg is changed, 
and it turns over sufficiently to restore its 
equilibrium, with the heaviest part once 
more hanging downward in water. It thus 
floats, moving with the current generally 
southward, the sun's rays, wind and frost 
changing the exposed surface and the out- 
line of the berg itself. When the warmer 
currents of water are reached in lower lati- 
tudes melting takes place, till the bergs 
finally disappear altogether in the Gulf 
Stream. 

It is this melting of icebergs as they 
move southward into the warm water that 
has built up from the floor of the ocean 
that remarkable tract known as the Grand 
Banks of Newfoundland. The glaciers of 
Greenland carry with them as they move 
toward the sea great quantities of stone and 
sand, gathered as debris from the mountain 
vallejs where they were formed. The ice- 
bergs breaking away from the glaciers and 
floating southward into the Atlantic carry 
with them these same fragments, and as 
they melt ultimately deposit the debris upon 
the floor of the ocean. This process contin- 
uing through centuries upon centuries, they 
have built in the Atlantic a great plateau, 
surrounded by deep water, rising within a 
few hundred feet of the level of the sea. 
This peculiarly submerged plateau lying to 
the southeast of Newfoundland covers an 
area of some 200 by 400 miles. On these 
Grand Banks are the favorite fishing 
grounds of the fleets that sail from Massa- 
chusetts and JSTewfoundland every year for 
cod and mackerel. The greater Atlantic 



liners usually pass to the south of the Grand 
Banks in order to avoid the fogs, the ice- 
bergs and the fishing vessels which obstruct 
the more northern route. But in early sum- 
mer the tourist on a vessel sailing from a 
Canadian port and crossing the Grand 
Banks can hardly fail to have the pleasure 
of seeing one or more of these great travel- 
ers from the Arctic, as well as numbers of 
the fishing schooners themselves, working 
in these shallower waters. 

We observe that the ice of the bergs looks 
like great masses of chalk or loaf sugar, 
varnished, if you please, or glistening like 
powdered glass. At times it is pure white, 
at others it looks greenish, and we note that 
this greenish tone is caused by the reflection 
of light upon masses of ice under water, 
thrown back upon the exposed surface. The 
shadow side, away from the sunlight, is a 
beautiful blue, traceable to the reflection 
from the &ky. We also see icebergs of a 
beautiful blue color, and these are built up 
of ice formed from fresh Avater, the water 
melting upon the surface of the glaciers, 
due to evaporation, rain and melting snow, 
being different from ice or frozen water, 
containing salt, in that being much thinner 
or porous, it absorbs light. Charming cobalt 
blue bands are sometimes seen running 
through bergs, and these are the streams of 
fresh water frozen before the berg was 
formed, invaluable as the fresh water sup- 
ply of the Arctic ships. 

Let us look at that great glacier with ir- 
regular front, as high as a six-story house, 
with a length of a mile and a half. We 
are steaming about four miles away, and 
the day is beautifully clear, with bright 
sunshine. The air is crisp, like one of our 
winter days, the water calm as a mill pond, 
and a great silence reig-ns. Floating pieces 



,yimazing ^QJonder>s of Mature 



435 



of ice called floebergs and icepans, with a 
seal Ijung asleep upon them, float by. Arctic 
birds, the puffin, eider duck, mollomokes 
and kittiwakes, fly past ; a charming tran- 
quillity rests over all and we feel at peace 
with all the world. A great boom is heard, 
like the report of a big gun, echoed and re- 
re-echoed till it dies 
away. We look toward 
the glacier. A mas^ 
of the ice, as large a^ 
eight city houses, is 
slowdy detaching and 
sliding away, sinking, 
sinking very slowly, 
pushing in front of 
it a high green wave 
of water, which ap- 
proaches like a wall. 
As we look the mass 
turns over, and as a 
portion rises the water 
is thrown off in a great 
cataract. The mass 
sinks out of sight, now 
it rises again. It rocks 
from side to side, sinks 
again, nearly out of 
sight ; rises again, turns 
a little, and thus for twenty minutes it 
keeps moving. The waves have reached our 
ship, and we rock, heave and dip under 
their influence. At last the berg has set- 
tled quietly, and is floating with the 
tide. A beautiful blue cave is visible, 
a great turret at one end, a sloping 
mass rising toward the opposite. A 
great concave channel slanting along its 
base shows the former action of the water 
line. This berg will float southward, grad- 
ually melting, changing its form, becoming 
smaller, and flnally mingling with the wa- 



ters of the Atlantic. Thus an iceberg is 
born and dies. 

TRINIDAD AND ITS 

BITUMINOUS LAKE 

Columbus discovered Trinidad in 1498, 




THE GREAT ASPHALT LAKE OF TRINIDAD. 



and gave it that name because of the three 
mast-like mountains on it which appeared 
to rise directly out of the sea. With the 
island of Tobago it forms the British crown 
colony of Trinidad. Trinidad has 1,754 
square miles and its chief town has the 
singular name Port of Spain. At the near- 
est point it is only 9 miles across the Gulf 
of Paria to the mainland of Venezuela. 

ISTear the village of La Brea is a strange 
fresh-water lake of about 300 acres, the sur- 
face of which is covered with pitch. The 
asphalt bubble* up in the center and hard- 



436 



^mazing tOonder^ of /fature 



eus upon the surface, from which it is taken 
for export. The deepest soundings have 
never been able to reach any bottom, al- 
though the surface of the lake is only 80 
feet above sea level. 

On the shore nearest the lake a great deal 
of bitumen is thrown up by the sea. The 
pitch on the side of the lake next to the sea 
is never hard, but on the other side it hard- 
ens to a great depth and is rent in fissures 
twenty or thirty feet across. This part of 
the lake, from which about 100,000 tons 
are annually exported, consists of 110 acres. 

It is estimated that this lake alone would 
pave all the streets of the world, and that 
the supply is inexhaustible for all human 
purposes. 

DEATH VALLEY 

Away out in California, near the south- 
ern extremity of Nevada, far from any 
railway and lying in the heart of a barren, 
desert country, is that fatal depression 
marked on all maps by the name which it 
has long justified, "Death Valley." The 
gloomy history of the place for many a 
year has deterred even the most curious of 
visitors to the neighborhood from attempt- 
ing to traverse its barren expanse. And 
yet Death Valley is being explored in all 
its parts. Tell that to a Californian and he 
will laugh at you. "It is impossible," he 
will jeer. "The fools who try to ask that 
mouth of hell for its mysteries will die. 
Death Valley cannot be explored." 

But Death Valley is being explored. 
And the explorers are not plainsmen inured 
to hardship, but college professors from 
the East. They come from Boston and 
Chicago, and are botanists, biologists, and 
mineralogists. Tell that to a Californian, 



and he will say that you are insane or they 
are. 

Death Valley comes by its name honestly. 
It is the most hideous and most fatal spot 
known to man. No spot in Asia or Africa 
is so destructive to life. No depression on 
earth is so far beneath sea level. No other 
place on earth is so hot. No other desert 
is dryer. 

At one point in the Valley, where the 
depression is 200 feet beneath the level of 
the sea, and the width across seven miles, 
a mountain rises on one side to the height 
of two miles, and on the other side is an- 
other mountain 8,000 feet high. The sides 
of the two mountains are almost sheer. 
Into this pit, with its bottom of borax dirt, 
waterless, the sun beats directly down in 
summer, and not a breath of wind is ever 
felt on its floor. 

That seven-mile stretch between Funeral 
Peak and Telescope Peak is the cruelest 
and most horrible spot on the face of the 
whole earth. No man could be alive in 
it in summer for half an hour. The tem- 
perature has never been taken. In other 
parts of Death Valley 137 degrees has been 
observed and recorded, but no record has 
ever been made of the summer heat of that 
terrible seven-mile stretch. 

Death Valley is a land of paradoxes. In 
the summer it kills off the healthy who so 
much as approach it. In the fall it heals 
and restores the sick who invade it. 

John K. Spears wrote of it: "It is a 
place where rain-storms are well nigh un- 
kno'vn, and yet one where the effects of 
cloudbursts are almost unparalleled. It is 
the hottest place on earth, and yet ice often 
forms there. It is a place where the air be- 
comes so arid that men have died through 
lack of moisture when I'bun.dant -^^'ater was 



^ytmaxing ^Ofonder^ of /Mature 



437 



at hand, and jet the stopping place of hun- 
dreds of duck, geese, and other fowL It is 
a region where the beds of lakes are found 
on the pointed peaks of the mountains. It 
is a region where a mountain system of the 
most gorgeous colored rocks is known as 
the Funeral Eange. It is a rent in the 
earth, the bottom of which, in spite of the 
'sv-ashings, probabh- is deeper below the level 
of the sea than that of any other valley 
in the world." 

Death Valley has mines and marshes and 
borax beds. For this reason the exploring 
party is invading a part of the valley hith- 
erto let alone, for the Los Angeles, San 
Pedro and Salt Lake Kailway is running a 
new line across the desert country, north of 
the valley. The road will make somebody 
rich who owns part of Death Valley and 
keeps away from it. And it will kill lots 
of men who own nothing of it and go into it. 

The bottom of the valley is made of great 
acres of saline deposits, beds of borax and 
salt, which, under a strong sunshine, pre- 
sent a ghastly appearance with their glist- 
ening whiteness. The bedrocks are shale 
and schist left from the Jura-Triassic pe- 
riod, but a most extensive volcanic eruption 
has so scattered and demoralized the vari- 
ous formations, that widely different de- 
posits are often found within a few feet 
of one another. There are dozens of craters 
of extinct volcanoes in the valley, and with 
their blackened ruins and coating of dark 
cinders, acres of area, the general whiteness 
of the valley bottoms stands out all the 
more lonely and ghastly. 

Death Valley lies in Inyo County, many 
rniles from the nearest railroad, 350 miles 
from the Pacific Ocean, and close beside 
the Nevada-California state line. It is a 
part of the Mojave and Colorado deserts, 



and is the quintessence of all that is mel- 
ancholy, grim, and withered in desert char- 
acteristics. The valley proper is about one 
hundred miles long and fifty miles wide. 

The mirages of Death Valley are the 
most remarkable in the world. Every day 
in any season one sees among the parched 
hills and scaled mountain sides, phantasmic 
pictures, miles in area, of foaming moun- 
tain streams, sylvan shades, alfalfa fields, 
and browsing cattle-scenes, reflected from 
the sides and tops of the Sierras. Occa- 
sionally scenes from the Pacific Ocean may 
be reflected in the mirages, and sailing 
ships and tossing waves may be seen amid 
the shimmering, desolate sand hills and al- 
kali canons of Death Valley. The Indians 
call the mirages the Big Spirit's pictures. 
Sometimes in the hottest weather the 
mirage will remain floating wonderfully 
distinct in the valley for a day at a time, 
but generally it lasts only a few minutes. 
Then the phantasma vanishes in a twink- 
ling, to be soon succeeded by another, until 
as many as seven different mirages have 
been seen there in one day. 

Sand storms are a serious thing on the 
Colorado and Mojave deserts, but nowhere 
do they approach the deadliness of the sand 
storm in Death Valley. The simoons of 
the Arabian Deserts are well known in lit- 
erature, but the explorers of Death Valley 
say the simoons are mere babes by the sid« 
of a howling gale of hot sand in this place. 
The hot air rising from the canons and the 
bottom of the valley encounters the cold 
atmospheric currents from the Sierras and 
Rockies, and the rushing of the cooler air 
into the valley instantly creates a storm 
undreamed of in any other part of the 
world. For hours at a time the sand stornt 
rages, occasionally for a day and a night 



438 



,^ytinazin^ tOonders of Mature 



Nothing alive can brave the hurricane. 
The man who vpill keep close within a tent, 
with his head wrapped in a blanket, will 
survive, but he will suffer with the heat al- 
most as severely as if in an oven, and for 
days thereafter with pain from smarting 
nostrils and inflamed ears and eyes. Old- 
time plainsmen who know about all the 
hardships a man's anatomy can experience, 
are a unit in saying that the desert sand 
storm, more particularly a Death Valley 
sand storm, is the most trying physical or- 
deal. The mountains which bulwark Death 
Valley show the terrific erosion of their 
flinty faces by successions of these tem- 
pests. Here and there are starved grease- 
root plants, like stunted, starved trees that 
have been half-buried in the sand during 
these storms. Many a man who has been 
a desert teamster or a mining prospector 
has suffered chronic inflammation of the 
eyes by reason of having experienced one 
of these whirlwinds of alkali sand. 

The nearest water course to Death Val- 
ley is the Amargosa Eiver, a little stream 
that trickles down in an enormous bed from 
away up among the mountains in Xevada. 
Centuries ago the Amargosa was a mighty, 
roaring torrent that eroded granite rocks 
and ate a river bed half a mile wide for 
over eighty miles. The Amargosa touches 
the extreme southwestern end of Death Val- 
ley, and in this locality lizards and venom- 
ous crawling things, may be occasionally 
seen darting from under the rocks. In the 
same locality tiny rivulets of heavily 
charged borax water issue from the base 
of ancient volcanoes and form in pools. 
Hundreds of acres of the purest borax are 
created here by the intense evaporation, 
and large fortunes have been made by Cali- 
fornians, who haul the product across the 



desert to the railroad station in Mojave. 

Death Valley gets, its name from its 
ghastly aspect, its desolation, and its deadly 
effect upon many a venturesome or igno- 
rant mining prospector who has attempted 
to cross it in the summer, and who has died 
of thirst there. Among all the tales of grim 
hardships and dreadful suffering by emi- 
gTants to California before there were rail- 
roads west of the Missouri Eiver, none is 
sc pitiful as that of the party who got lost 
in Death Valley in 1849. There were five 
hundred emigrants in a caravan at Salt 
Lake City in August of that year. All 
were going to the gold fields of California. 
A division of opinion arose as to the safest 
and easiest- trail across the trackless plains 
and the Sierras to the new El Dorado. 
Some two hundred of the party struck out 
for the southeast and found the old Santa 
Fe trail, which finally led them to southern 
California. The rest went plodding in a 
caravan across the wastes of southern Utah. 
There was nothing to show them the way 
through the lifeless, roasting valley, past 
the bald mountains, and then westward over 
the towering Sierras. 

The caravan was in the land of thirst. 
For four months the starving, half-crazed 
men and women wandered hither and yon 
through the region of horror, seeking some 
pass between the mountains to the Pacific 
Ocean. Mirages led them vainly away 
from the trail. Their wagons fell apart 
from dryness, and horses daily fell under 
the withering heat. The oxen fell, and 
the stalwart men sickened and died in the 
camps. One day nine young men became 
separated from the main party, and years 
later their whitened bones were found in 
an extinct volcano crater, where they had 
trawled in their delirium and weakness. 



I 



^yimaxing tOonders of /farurt* 



439 



For days the gaunt, weak lueu iu the 
party went without food. The days were 
too hot to be out in the sun, and they con- 
fined their efforts to the nights for finding 
paths that might lead out of the roasting 
tomb. 

At last eighty-two of the original party 
— now mere skeletons and so weak they 
could scarcely walk — found a passageway 
through the Funeral Mountains, and sum- 
moning all their little remaining strength, 
managed to get up and out of Death Val- 
ley into the cool and well-watered region of 
southern California, beyond the Sierras. 
One of the party, the Kev. J. VT. Grier, 
weighed 188 pounds when he left Salt Lake 
City, and when he reached Los Angeles 
eighteen weeks later his weight was down 
to 92 pounds. Two of his brothers and 
one of his sisters-in-law died during the 
awful journey. 

The story of the destroyer is not told 
without an account of Lieutenant Wbeeler. 
"Wheeler was a young officer fresh from 
West Point, who, immediately upon his 
graduation, in 1870, was assigned to a one- 
company post in western J^evada. After 
going through the loneliness of a l^evada 
winter in his little post, under direct com- 
mand of his captain, a former West Point 
instructor, with whom he had quarreled at 
the academy, Wheeler came to an open per- 
sonal breach with his captain in the spring 
and vowed henceforth he would speak no 
words to his superior other than those en- 
joined upon him by the military regula- 
tions. The captain, resenting his subor- 
dinate's silence, piled upon him every dis- 
agreeable, onerous and unnecessary duty 
conceivable. 

In July, 1871, his captain ordered 
young Wheeler to take two men and search 



for the most direct path across Death Val- 
ley. "Wheeler marched off in the direction 
of the mantrap, and when he arrived at the 
edge of the valley of destruction he sought 
a guide. A halfbreed Mexican and Indian 
volunteered for $20 to steer the party 
across. "Here is your money," shouted 
Wheeler, "and now I'll hold you to what 
you said. Start across." 

The halfbreed, frightened at the earnest- 
ness of the man whom he had expected to 
hoodwink, began to back and fill on his 
offer. "Fix bayonets," ordered "Wheeler to 
his two men. They did so. "N"ow march 
that man across that pit in front of you." 

Toward nightfall the three started, the 
two soldiers with fixed bayonets, the guide 
in front of them. The next morning the 
two soldiers came back separately. One 
was utterly raving and permanently insane. 
The other, suffering from sun-stroke, drank 
a few drops from Wheeler's canteen, then 
lay down to rest in a boulder's shade. In 
the afternoon he was dead. Wheeler was 
never sane after his all-night vigil waiting 
by the side of Death Valley for his two 
men to come back. The gnaide wandered 
off from the two soldiers and was never 
seen alive again, although his wife identi- 
fied his bones the following winter by 
means of a string of beads which he wore 
around his neck. 

BORAX AND ITS PRODUCTION 

Every man Avho went to California in the 
early '50s hoped to have a gold mine of his 
own, where he could settle down and be- 
come as wealthy as a national bank with 
little or no exertion. But unfortunately 
nature has not provided enough gold mines 




^mazing tCfonderj^ of J^alure 



to go all around. Consequently it was not 
long before the country Avas flooded with 
a tatterdemalion swarm of men, half 
miners, half tenderfeet, who, instead of 
being their o^vn millionaires, were seeking 
an opportunity to relieve the ache under 
their belts. They were also bent on discov- 
ering something — ^that is what they had 
come for — and if it couldn't be a gold 
mine it might be a silver mine, a diamond 
drift or anything — ^they cared very little 
what. And that is how the vast borax de- 
posits of the region came to be unearthed. 
Previous to that time borax came mostly 
from Asia, and it was an expensive and 
little known commodity, sold from some 
small glass bottle on the apothecary's shelf. 
But within ten years after the time the dis- 
appointed gold miners found the deposits 
of borax it had become almost as common as 
table salt. Today the work of digging, 
transporting and refining it has grown to 
be a vast industry. 

Borax was discovered out west by a man 
with an idea. Dr. John A. Veatch was a 
good deal of a geologist, and when he went 
west to look for gold and saw the vast 
stretches of parched and bitter alkaline 
plains he concluded from his knowledge of 
rock formations that borax could be found 
somewhere in the region. So he began to 
look for it deliberately, and one day early 
in 1S56 his prospecting spade struck a 
small deposit in a dried lake bottom. It 
was not worth much, but it set a great crowd 
of miners peering about in the tope of find- 
ing better deposits. A few years after, 
some prospectors discovered that the bot- 
toms of several California lakes were iwW 
of borax crystals, and from mining in the 
earth they began pumping water out of 
huge caissons set in the mud and then dig- 
ging the earth up inside them and washing 



/Imaxirt^ XOonder^ of J^alure 



441 



out tlie crystals. Althougli the borax thus 
found was not pure it could be used for 
manufacturing fluxes of various sorts, and 
the substance was greatly cheapened. 

But the greatest discovery was made in 
that great, hot region, "Death Valley," in 
California. It was made in a most ro- 
mantic way. In 1880 Aaron Winters lived 
with his wife, Kosie, in a gulch known as 
Ash Meadows, not far from the deadly 
mouth of Death Valley. He was so fond 
of his wife that he would not allow her to 
be long absent from him, although their 
little hut on the side of the mountain was 
100 miles from the nearest neighbor in a 
wild, rugged, forsaken country. One day 
a desert tramp came along and stopped over 
night at the Winters home and told the 
hunter about the borax deposits of ISTevada. 
When he went away Winters thought that 
he had seen deposits of the kind described 
on his explorations down into Death Val- 
ley. Accordingly the strange couple went 
together to make the search, having pre- 
viously provided themselves with certain 
test chemicals, which, when combined with 
borax and ignited, would produce a green 
flame. 

Having procured a piece of the substance 
which he believed to be borax. Winters and 
his wife waited for nightfall to make the 
test. How would it burn ? For years they 
had lived like Piutes on the desert, entirely 
without luxuries and often wanting for the 
very necessities of life. Would the match 
change all that ? Winters held the blaze to 
the substance with a trembling hand, then 
shouted at the top of his voice: "She burns 
green, Rosie ! We're rich ! We're rich !" 

They had found borax. The mine was 
sold for $20,000, and Winters took Eosie 
to a ranch in Nevada, but she could not 



stand prosperity, and a few years later she 
died. 

Borax crystals are no longer dug even in 
California and ISTevada, because the sub- 
stance has been found in much more conve- 
nient form for refining in combination with 
lime. In this state it occurs in mountain 
strata, and it has to be mined exactly like 
silver or copper, but the cost is far greater. 
In the first place the region is totally desti- 
tute of water and fuel of any kind, both of 
which have to be transported long distances. 
Indeed, so dry is the country that work- 
men frequently go insane, and both men 
and horses perish miserably from thirst if 
water is not kept constantly at hand. 

Besides all of the difficulties, accentuated 
by the necessity of having the finest ma- 
chinery and skilled labor, all of the ore has 
to be transported for scores of miles over 
the desert before it reaches the railroads. 

This work is mostly done by the aid of 
huge wagons with broad-tire wheels, weigh- 
ing about 8,000 pounds each and having a 
carrying capacity of 20,000 pounds. To 
each wagon several teams of horses and 
mules are hitched, and the long trip across 
the desert and through perilous mountain 
passes begins. One of the wagons in the 
train is provided with a tank of water, for 
it would be impossible to travel without it. 
The drivers are rugged, fearless men, par- 
taking of the characteristics of the country. 
They can swear as artistically at their 
mules as any teamsters in the world, and 
can drink as much whisky, but they are 
withal a hearty, hospitable set. 

On reaching the railroad the ore from the 
great wagons is loaded on box-cars and 
transported several hundred miles to the 
refineries, one of the largest of which is lo- 
cated on San Erancisco bay. Here the 



442 



,^mazin^ tOonders of J^alure 



rough, broken masses of brown rock are un- 
loaded at the door of a long, shed-like build- 
ing, and the process which is to transform 
it into beautiful crystals of borax is soon 
under way. The crude material first passes 
between the jaws of a rock-breaker, from 
which it comes out in small, pebble-like 
pieces. Then it goes into the hopper of a 
machine not unlike an old-fashioned buhr- 
stone flour-mill, where it is thoroughly pul- 
verized. It now has about the appearance 
of buckwheat flour, and is ready for the 
final process of separating the borax. 

To accomplish this it is thrown into a 
great steam chest or pressure boiler, called a 
digester, and carbonate soda in a fixed pro- 
portion is added. When heat is applied in 
the furnace below and the mass within the 
boiler is churned with plungers, the diges- 
tion in the big stomach begins. The car- 
bonic acid in the carbonate of soda sudden- 
ly deserts the soda, and unites after many 
spurts and fizzings with the lime in the 
borax ore, which is nothing more than bo- 
rate of lime. Then the boracic acid in the 
ore finds more attractive company with 
the deserted soda, and in the united state 
becomes bichlorate of sodium, which is only 
the aristocratic name for borax. It is still 
in solution, however, and as soon as it cools 
off it is run into great vats filled with a 
myriad of steel rods. On these rods the 
borax crystallizes just as rock candy clings 
to a string. When the borax is all out of 
solution the rods are withdrawn from the 
water, and the crystals of borax scraped 
off. By dissolving them again and recrys- 
tallizing, a purer form of borax is secured. 
When powdered it is ready for the market. 

Borax is used in hundreds of different 
ways, and, as people become more famil- 
iar with it, the demand grows greater. The 



great packers consume large quantities in 
the dry packing of meat for export, and 
iron and glass workers and enameling fac- 
tories use it constantly as a flux. 

But the greatest portion of the whole 
amount is consumed in the household. ISTot 
being a patented commodity it sells at its 
real market value, which is about 7 cents a 
pound. Its alkaline properties make it val- 
uable for softening hard water, and for 
cleaning woodwork. Almost every house- 
wife is familiar with it. It is also used in 
various ways as a medicine and in the 
toilet. It is also said to be death on inseota 
of all kinds. 

An artificial ivory, called lactitis, is now 
made of skimmed milk coagulated, mixed 
with borax, and submitted to tremendou ; 
pressure. This substance is used for combi , 
billiard balls and other articles. 

THE GRAND CANYON OF 
ARIZONA 

Travelers agree that the Grand Canyon 
of Arizona, formed where the Colorado 
river has carved a great channel for itself 
across the northwestern part of that terri- 
tory, is the most wonderful of all scenic 
displays in the world. For many years this 
amazing chasm was unknown to white men 
or un visited by them, but in more recent 
times trails were cut and then roads, and 
now a railway has been built until it may 
be viewed with entire comfort and ease by 
any one who takes the transcontinental 
journey by way of the railway which 
reaches the brink of the canyon. As access 
became easier and travelers began to in- 
crease in number, the beauties and gran- 
deur of the place became better known. 



^^maxing ^BC/onder-r of J^ature 



443 



To-day it is the favored destination of 
geologists, artists and explorers who find no 
oiher scene so worthy of their attention in 
.'ill the world. Some of the most eminent 
literary men and graphic lecturers have 
journeyed thither, and their accounts, al- 
though falling far short of giving a corn- 



has published a book of great value, de- 
scriptive of that exploration and others 
which he made in succeeding years. The 
artist George Wharton James, some years 
later, lived for a considerable period on the 
brink of the Canyon and in its depths, 
studying its varied moods and painting it 




-f ti n 1 re railway 

IV THE GPAND CANYON OF ARIZONA. 
SuuWiLg the Colorado Ri\er in the inner gorge at the foot of Bright Angel Trail. 



plete idea of the wonders of the place, are 
the next thing to a personal journey of 
investigation. 

The first real exploration of the Grand 
Canyon was made by Major J. W. Powell 
in 1869, and since that time no other ex- 
ploration has equaled his journey in dar- 
ing or surpassed it in achievements. He 



in intimacy, with the result that he too 
issued a beautiful volume which serves as 
the best reference book and guide to the 
region. Other minor books have been pub- 
lished, including artistic and valuable 
guides issued by the railway company. 
Magazine articles have been contributed by 
such authors as C. F. Lummis, Harriet 



444 



^yimaxing tOonder^ of /future 



Monroe, Joaquin Miller, Hamlin Garland, 
Charles Dudley Warner and others. Poets, 
too, as well as painters and photographers, 
have lent their art in the effort to interpret 
and picture the glories of the Canyon. It 
is a subject of never failing interest and 
one to which no one has yet done justice. 

Few men have known the Grand Canyon 
of Arizona better than did C. A. Higgins, 
who camped in it, traveled all its trails, 
and studied it in every one of its chang- 
ing conditions. An artist by temperaonent, 
he saw the spendid scene in all its signifi- 
cance, and with a graphic pen told what 
he saw in modest fashion. The account- 
which follows is condensed from an article 
by Mr. Higgins. 

"The Colorado is one of the great rivers 
of North America. Formed in southern 
Utah by the confluence of the Green and 
Grand, it intersects the northwestern cor- 
ner of Arizona, and, becoming the eastern 
boundary of ISTevada and California, flows 
southward until it reaches tidewater in the 
Gulf of California, Mexico. It drains a 
territory of 300,000 square miles, and, 
traced back to the rise of its principal 
source, is 2,000 miles long. At two points, 
Keedles and Yuma on the California 
boundary, it is crossed by a railroad. Else- 
where its course lies far from Caucasian 
settlements and far from the routes of com- 
mon travel, in the heart of a vast region 
fenced on the one hand by arid plains or 
deep forests and on the other by formid- 
able mountains. 

"The early Spanish explorers first re- 
ported it to the civilized world in 1540, 
two separate expeditions becoming ac- 
quainted with the river for a comparatively 
short distance above its mouth, and an- 
other, journeying from the Moki Pueblos 



northwestward across the desert, obtaining 
the first view of the Big Canyon, failing in 
every effort to descend the canyon wall, and 
spying the river only from afar. Again, in 
1776, a Spanish priest traveling southward 
through Utah struck off from the Virgin 
Eiver to the southeast and found a practi- 
cable crossing at a point that still bears the 
name 'Vade de los Padres.' 

"For more than eighty years thereafter 
the Big Canyon remained unvisited except 
by the Indian, the Mormon herdsman and 
the trapper, although the Sitgreaves expedi- 
tion of 1851, journeying westward, struck 
the river about 150 miles above Yuma, and 
Lieutenant Whipple in 1854 made a survey 
for a practicable railroad route along the 
thirty-fifth parallel, where the Santa Fe 
railway has since been constructed. 

"The establishment of military posts in 
E"ew Mexico and Utah having made desir- 
able the use of a waterway for the cheap 
transportation of supplies, in 1857 the War 
Department dispatched an expedition in 
charge of Lieutenant Ives to explore the 
Colorado as far from its mouth as naviga- 
tion should be found practicable. Ives as- 
cended the river in a specially constructed 
steamboat to the head of Black Canyon, a 
few miles below the confluence of the Vir- 
gin River in N^evada, where further navi- 
gation became impossible; then, returning 
to the ISTeedles, he set off across the country 
toward the northeast. He reached the Big 
Canyon at Diamond Creek and at Cataract 
Creek in the spring of 1858, and from the 
latter point made a wide southward detour 
around the San Francisco Peaks, thence 
northeastward to the Moki Pueblos, thence 
eastward to Fort Deflance, and so back to 
civilization. 

"That is the history of the explorations 



^yimazing XOonders of /Mature 



445 



of the Colorado up to forty years ago. Its 
exact course was unknown for many hun- 
dred miles, even its origin being a matter 
of conjecture. It was difficult to approach 
within a distance of two or three miles from 
the channel, while descent to the river's 
edge could he hazarded only at wide inter- 
vals, inasmuch as it lay in an appalling fis- 
sure at the foot of seemingly impassable 
cliff terraces that led down from the bor- 
dering plateau ; and to attempt its naviga- 
tion was to court death. It was known in a 
general way that the entire channel be- 
tween Xevada and Utah was of the same 
titanic character, reaching its ciilmination 
nearly midway in its course through Ari- 
zona. 

"In 1869 Major J. W. Powell undertook 
the exploration of the river with nine men 
and four boats, starting from Green River 
City, on the Green Eiver, in Utah. The 
project met with the most urgent remon- 
strance from those who were best ac- 
quainted with the region, including the In- 
dians, who maintained that boats could not 
possibly live in any one of a score of rapids 
and falls kno\\Ti to them, to say nothing of 
the vast unknown stretches in which at any 
moment a Xiagara might be disclosed. It 
Avas also currently believed that for hun- 
dreds of miles the river disappeared wholly 
beneath the surface of the earth. 

''Powell launched his flotilla on AEay 24, 
and on August 30 landed at the mouth of 
the Virgin River, more than one thousand 
miles by the river channel from the place 
of starting, minus two boats and four men. 
One of the men had left the expedition by 
way of an Indian reservation agency be- 
fore reaching Arizona, and three, after 
holding out against unprecedented terrors 
for many weeks, had finally become 



daunted, choosing to encounter the perils 
of an unknown desert rather than to brave 
any longer the frightful menaces of that 
Stygian torrent. These three, unfortun- 
ately making their appearance on the pla- 
teau at a time when a recent depredation 
was colorably chargeable upon them, they 
were killed by Indians, their story of hav- 
ing come thus far down the river in boats 
being wholly discredited by their captors. 

"Powell's journal of the trip is a fascin- 
ating tale, written in a compact and modest 
style, which, in spite of its reticence, tells 
an epic story of purest heroism. It defin- 
itely established the scene of his explora- 
tion as the most wonderful geological and 
spectacular phenomenon known to man- 
kind, and justified the name which had 
been bestowed upon it — the Grand Canyon, 
sublimest of gorges, Titan of chasms. 
Alany scientists have since visited it, and, 
in the aggTegate, a large number of unpro- 
fessional lovers of nature ; but until a few 
years ago no adequate facilities were pro- 
vided for the general sight-seer, and the 
world's most stupendous panorama was 
known principally through report, by rea- 
son of the discomforts and difficulties of the 
trip, which deterred all except the most 
indefatigable enthusiasts. Even its geo- 
graphical location is the subject of wide 
spread misapprehension. 

"Its title has been pirated for applicatioi" 
to relatively insignificant canyons in c'is 
tant parts of the country, and thousands 
of tourists have been led to believe that 
they saw the Grand Canyon, when, in fact, 
they looked upon a totally different ocene, 
between which and the real Grand Canyon 
there is no more comparison 'than (here is 
between the Alleghenies or Tro9a(hs and 
the Himalayas.' There is but ooi, Grand 



446 



,yi-mazing '^Oonders of J^ature 



Canyon. ISTowhere in tlie world has its like 
been found. 

"Stolid, indeed, is he who can front the 
awful scene and view its unearthly splen- 
dor of color and form without quaking knee 
or tremulous breath. An inferno, swathed 
in soft celestial fires; a whole chaotic un- 
derworld, just emptied of primeval floods 
and waiting for a new creative word ; elud- 
ing all sense of perspective or dimension, 
outstretching the faculty of measurement, 
overlapping the confines of definite appre- 
hension ; a boding, terrible thing, unflinch- 
ingly real, yet spectral as a dream. The 
beholder is at first unimpressed by any de- 
tail ; he is overwhelmed by the ensemble of 
a stupendous panorama, a thousand square 
miles in extent, that lies wholly beneath 
the eye, as if he stood upon a mountain 
peak instead of the level brink of a fearful 
chasm in the plateau, whose opposite shore 
is thirteen miles away. A labyrinth of 
huge architectural forms, endlessly varied 
in design, fretted with ornamental devices, 
festooned with lacelike webs formed of 
taliTS from the upper cliffs, and painted 
with every color known to the palette in 
pure transparent tones of marvelous deli- 
cacy. ITever was picture more harmoni- 
ous, never flower more exquisitely beauti- 
ful. It flashes instant communication of 
all that architecture and painting and 
music for a thousand years have gropingly 
striven to express.. It is the soul of Michael 
Angelo and of Beethoven. 

''A canyon, truly, but not after the ac- 
cepted type. An intricate system of can- 
yons, rather, each subordinate to the river 
system in the midst, which in its turn is 
subordinate to the whole effect. That river 
channel, the profoimdest depth, and ac- 
tually more than 6,000 feet below the point 



of view, is in seeming a rather insignificant 
trench, attracting the eye more by reason 
of its somber tone and mysterious sugges- 
tion than by any appreciable characteris- 
tic of a chasm. It is perhaps five miles dis- 
tant in a straight line, and its uppermost 
rims are nearly 4,000 feet beneath the ob- 
server, whose measuring capacity is en- 
tirely inadequate to the demand made by 
such magnitudes. One can not believe the 
distance to be more than a mile as the crow 
flies, before descending the wall or attempt- 
ing some other form of actual measure- 
ment. 

"Mere brain knowledge counts for little 
against the illusion under which the organ 
of vision is here doomed to labor. Yonder 
cliff, darkening from white to gray, yellow 
and brown as your glance descends, is taller 
than the Washington monument. The 
Auditorium in Chicafro would not cover 
one-half its perpendicular span. Yet it 
does not greatly impress you. You idly 
toss a pebble toward it, and are surprised 
to note how far the missile falls short. By 
and by you will learn that it is a good half 
mile distant, and when you go down the 
trail you will gain an abiding sense of its 
real proportions. Yet, relatively, it is an 
unimportant detail of the scene. Were 
Vulcan to cast it bodily into the chasm 
directly beneath your feet, it would pass 
for a boulder, if, indeed, it were discover- 
able to the unaided eye. 

"Yet the immediate chasm itself is only 
the first step of a long terrace that leads 
down to the innermost gorge and the river. 
Roll a heavy stone to the rim and let it go. 
It falls sheer the height of a church or an 
Eiffel Tower, according to the point se- 
lected for such pastime, and explodes like 
a bomb on a projecting ledge. If, happily, 



^masiin^ tOonder^ of J^ature 



447 



any considerable fragments remain, they 
bound onward like elastic balls, leaping 
in wild parabola from point to point, snap- 
ping trees like straws; bursting, crashing, 
thundering do^vn the declivities, until they 
make a last plunge over the brink of a 
void; and then there comes languidly up 
the cliff sides a faint roar, and your boulder 
that had withstood the buffets of centuries 
lies scattered as wide as Wycliffe's ashes, 
although the final fragment has lodged 
only a little way, so to speak, below the 
rim. Such performances are frequently 
given in these amphitheaters without hu- 
man aid, by the mere undermining of the 
rain, or perhaps it is here that Sisyphus 
rehearses his unending task. Often in the 
silence of the night some tremendous frag- 
ment has been heard crashing from terrace 
to terrace with shocks like thunder peal. 

"The spectacle is so symmetrical, and so 
completely excludes the outside world and 
its accustomed standards, it is with diffi- 
culty one can acquire any notion of its im- 
mensity. Were it half as deep, half as 
broad, it would be no less bewildering, so 
utterly does it baffle human grasp." 

Within the last few years a hotel has 
been built on the very verge of the canyon, 
'and a railway has been built which connects 
directly with the transcontinental trains at 
the station of Williams, Arizona. This 
makes the journey available for any trav- 
eler, and since the train service to the rim 
of the canyon was established, visitors 
have multiplied rapidly. This is one of 
nature's marvels which can not be spoiled 
by the arrival of numbers or the building 
of hotels, so enormous is it, and with the 
Colorado river still roaring in its channel, 
continuing the mighty work of erosion, we 
may presume that the Grand Canyon of 



Arizona will remain as long as the world 
lasts, carving a deeper gorge, century by 
century, inspiring profound emotions in 
the beholders after generations have 



THE DAKOTA "BAD LANDS" , 

Hardly more than half a century ago, 
some of our greatest statesmen earnestly 
opposed any legislation or expenditure for 
the development or the exploration of 
the great region of the United States 
west of the Mississippi river. Even 
Daniel Webster, when the first transcon- 
tinental railway was under discussion in 
Congress, declared that he would never vote 
to appropriate one cent to connect the east 
with the Pacific coast, across thousands of 
miles of utterly worthless, uninhabitable 
desert country. A few government explor- 
ing parties had traversed the great west 
and reported on it, and accounts of various 
regions had come from daring pioneers and 
explorers who had forced their way be- 
yond the frontier, out of sheer joy of life 
in the wilderness. This was virtually the 
extent of knowledge of what is now the 
prosperous and populous land of the west. 

Such areas as what we know as the "Bad 
Lands" of Dakota, the "Terres Mauvaises" 
of the French voyageurs, went far to justify 
the bad name which was ascribed to the 
entire country before it was realized that 
these peculiar formations were but a small 
portion of the whole. We can well spare 
a little of the vast domain whicb our coun- 
try holds between the Mississippi and the 
Pacific to display the varied works of na- 
ture in different humors. The mountain 
ranges, the canyons, the waterfalls, the glow 
of color on the rock walls of cliff and gorge 



448 



,^/linaxm^ XOonder^ of feature 



— these all have their value as truly as do 
the wide and fertile prairies or the mighty 
forests. The Yosemite Valley, the Yellow- 
stone National Park, the Grand Canyon of 
Arizona, the Garden of the Gx)ds and the 
Bad Lands of Dakota are wonderful and 
beautiful instances of the variety of na- 
ture's impulses and works when forces are 
unrestrained. 

The Bad Lands occupy a large part of 
southwestern South Dakota, between the 




IN THE DAKOTA "BAD LANDS." 

Missouri river and the Black Hills. They 
are tracts of barrenness, reminders of a 
prehistoric age, and of special interest to 
the geologist, as the place of deposit for 
petrifactions, which they have hidden away 
for ages under as forbidding ground as can 
well be imagined. They are a picture of 
desolation, seamed and gashed by the ele- 
ments, ribbed and trussed by strata of fos- 
sils great and small, which seem to hold 
the sterile soil together, while cactus and 
sage-brush are the only visible forms of 



vegetation. The richness of the fossil beds 
has attracted the attention of many scien- 
tific expeditions since access to this strange 
region became easy. The great universi- 
ties of the east and west send parties of 
their geological students here every year, 
under the leadership of their professors, to 
delve into the mysteries of the past as they 
are indelibly recorded in the eternal rock. 
But the scientific visitor is not the only 
one well repaid by a journey to the Bad 
Lands. jSTature's freak- 
ish humor here has 
made a multitude of 
interesting things even 
in the worst of the bar- 
renness and desolation. 
Grotesque carvings in 
the rocks ; the tangle 
of canyons, cliffs and 
buttes ; the glow of 
varied color that meets 
the eye; the pure air 
and the beautiful sun- 
sets, all unite to make 
the region one of great 
interest even to the lay- 
man. 

Historically the Bad 
Lands are closely as- 
sociated with the Black Hills, which are 
their neighbors. During the period of 
frontier warfare, when the gold discoveries 
aroimd Deadwood had stimulated the in- 
vasion of white men to violate their 
treaties with the Indians, these regions were 
citadels for the savages. Among the laby- 
rinths of the hills and gulches they could 
evade pursuit or plan their raids to best 
advantage. Custer, Harney, Miles and the 
other great campaigners of the west found 
their task a difficult one to conquer the red 



,yiinaziTi^ XOonders of Mature 



449 



enemy in such a country and establish him 
in peace on the reservations to the east of 
the Black Hills. Here was where Sitting 
Bull fought some of his greatest fights. 
Xow the Bad Lands and the Black Hills 
alike are regions of peace, the latter busy 
with mining and commerce, the former left 
in virtual solitude except for the visits of 
interested geologists and tourists. 

^ jt je 

CRATER LAKE, AN OREGON 
WONDER 

The great west has furnished the world 
with some of the most marvelous of the 
works of nature. Stupendous canyons and 
gorges, big trees thousands of years old, 
cataracts hundreds of feet in height, moun- 
tain ranges, plains, deserts, salt lakes, gey- 
sers and other natural objects in endless 
variety, attract the traveler from afar. Lit- 
tle known, and difficult of access because 
of its distance from a railway and its 
rugged surroundings, is Crater Lake, in the 
state of Oregon, one of the most wonderful 
of all the sights beheld by the energetic 
traveler. 

Crater Lake is situated in the heart of 
the mountains of southwestern Oregon, 
about seventy miles from the California 
line, and twice as far from the Pacific 
ocean. It is necessary to drive eighty miles 
from the nearest railway station to reach 
it, and though the highway is a good mili- 
tary road running to Fort Klamath on the 
Klamath Indian reservation, not many 
travelers make the journey. It was discov- 
ered on June 12, 1853, by a party of pros- 
pectors. The Indians of southern Oregon 
have knowTi of it for ages, but until recent 
years none have seen it, for the reason that 



a tradition, handed down from generation 
to generation, described it as the home of 
myriads of sea-devils, and it was consid- 
ered certain death for any brave even to 
look upon it. The lake was first explored 
in 1886 by officers of the United States 
geological survey. W. G. Steel of Port- 
land, Oregon, long an officer of the Oregon 
Alpine Club, accompanied the expedition 
to the lake, which he had visited the previ- 
ous year, and after a period of exploration 
wrote an account of the wonders of the 
place, from which the following facts have 
been drawn. 

The lake is almost egg-shaped, ranging 
northeast and southwest, and is seven miles 
long by six in width. The surface of the 
water is 6,251 feet above sea level, and it 
is completely surrounded by a wall of 
cliffs from 500 to more than 2,000 feet 
high, which are scantily covered with con- 
iferous trees. At times, when gazing from 
the surrounding wall, the skies and cliffs 
are seen perfectly mirrored in the smooth 
and glassy surface over which the mountain 
breeze creates scarce a ripple, and it is 
with great difficulty the eye can distinguish 
the line dividing the cliffs from their re- 
flected counterfeits. 

To the southwest is Wizard Island, 845 
feet high, circular in shape, and slightly 
covered with timber. In the top of the 
island is a depression or crater — ^the 
Witches' Cauldron — 100 feet deep and 
475 feet in diameter. This was evidently 
the last smoking chimney of a once mighty 
volcano. The base of the island is covered 
with very heavy and hard rocks, with sharp 
and unworn edges, over which but few 
visitors have clambered. Farther up are 
deep beds of ashes, and light, spongy rocks 
and cinders, giving evidence of intense 



450 



,yiinaz,ing ^O^onder^ of J^alure 



heat. Witiiin the crater, as without, the 
surface is entirely covered with volcanic 
rocks. 

Directly north of the island is Llao Rock, 
a grand old sentinel, reaching to a perpen- 
dicular height ahove the surface of the lake 
of more than 2,000 feet. From the top of 
it you can drop a stone and it will gro^v 
smaller and smaller, until ypur head he- 
gins to swim and you see the stone become a 
mere speck and fade entirely from view; 
and at last, nearly half a mile below, it 
strikes the unruffled surface of the water 
and sinks forever from sight in the depths 
of an almost bottomless lake. 

There is probably no other point of in- 
terest in America that so completely over- 
comes the ordinary Indian with fear as 
Crater Lake. From time immemorial, no 
power has been strong enough to induce 
him to approach within sight of it. For a 
paltry sum he will engage to guide you 
thither, but before you reach the mountain 
top will leave you to proceed alone. To 
the savage mind it is clothed with a deep 
veil of mystery, and is the abode of all 
manner of demons and unshapely mon- 
sters. 

When the exploration of the lake was 
made, boats had to be built in Portland, 
Oregon, transported 340 miles by rail, and 
then carried to the lake on wagons, 100 
miles into the mountains, where they were 
launched over sheer cliffs 1,000 feet high. 
Soundings were made all over the lake, and 
the greatest depth found was 2,008 feet, 
while 600 feet was the depth of the shal- 
lowest water. The shore is entirely encir- 
cled with precipitous cliffs, coming down 
at but one place as low as 500 feet above 
the water. On one side, however, it was 



possible to make trails to the water's edge. 
Grottoes, bays, islands, cliffs and many 
strange formations help to magnify the 
beauty of the scene. 

In closing his account of this phenome- 
non, Mr. Steel says in part: "Crater 
Lake is but a striking memento of a dead 
past. Imagine a vast mountain, six by 
seven miles through at an elevation of 8,000 
feet, with the top removed and the inside 
hollowed out and filled with the clearest 
water in the world to within 2,000 feet of 
the top; then place a round island in one 
end, 845 feet high, in which dig a circular 
hole tapering to the center like a funnel, 
100 feet deep and 475 feet in diameter, 
and you have a perfect representation of 
Crater Lake. The surface of the water is 
twenty-three feet higher than the summit of 
Mount Washing-ton. What an immense 
affair it must have been, ages upon ages 
ago, when, long before the hot breath of a 
volcano soiled its hoary head, standing as 
a proud monarch, with its feet upon earth 
and its head in the heavens, it towered far, 
far above the mountain ranges, aye, looked 
far doAvn upon the snowy peaks of Hood 
and Shasta, and snuffed the air beyond the 
reach of Everest. Then streams of fire 
began to shoot forth, great seas of lava were 
hurled upon the earth beneath. The ele- 
ments seemed bent upon establishing hell 
upon earth, and fixing its throne upon this 
great mountain. At last the foundations 
gave way and it sank forever from sight, 
down, down, dovrai, deep into the bowels 
of the earth, leaving a great black, smoking 
chasm, which succeeding ages filled with 
pure, fresh water, giving to our day and 
generation one of the most beautiful 
within the vision of man." 



^ytmazing XOonders of Mature 



451 



GREAT CAVES OF THE WORLD 

It will be long before the wonders of 
nature are all revealed to man, for in addi- 
tion ta those which tempt travelers to re- 
mote and almost inaccessible parts of the 
world, there are others continually being 
discovered beneath the surface of the earth. 
Caverns have always had a mysterious in- 
terest whei'ever discovered. Their dark- 




BLUE GROTTO OF CAPRI, ITALY. 

ness, the unknown depths to which they 
may lead, the dangers of exploration in 
them, all appeal strongly to the seeker 
after the marvelous. They are almost al- 
ways the result of the action of water. 
Those upon the seashore are hollowed out 
by the action of the waves, either by means 
of the constant battering of the surf, or the 
dissolving of some of the elements in the 



rock. Those which are found inland, 
among the mountain ranges or elsewhere, 
come in like fashion from the percolation 
of water from the rocks above, and the 
gradual chemical processes that take place. 
The most famous cavern of the former 
class is the Blue Grotto of Capri. This is 
found in the island of Capri in the Medi- 
terranean Sea, not far from Naples. It 
can be reached only when the water is com- 
paratively calm, by 
small boats which 
follow around the 
rocky coast and 
pass directly into 
the grotto under 
an arch which 
spans the channel. 
Once within, a suc- 
cession of vaulted 
arches forms the 
roof of the grotto, 
which extends for 
a considerable dis- 
tance into the is- 
land. Of course 
the sea within is 
calm, except when 
storms outside 
send their waves 
through the arched 
entrance and make 
the passage im- 
possible. The rocks which form the roof 
are of a peculiarly beautiful blue in color 
and covered with glittering crystals. The 
light which passes through the entrance and 
reflects from the surface of the water seems 
to be multiplied many times, and gives the 
grotto a striking beauty. When artificial 
lights are used at night or to heighten the 
effect by day, the color effects are mag- 



452 



,yimazing tOonder^ of /Mature 



nificent and the fame of the grotto is well 
justified. 

The largest cavern commonly visited and 
conveniently open to tourists, if not the 
largest in the world, is Mammoth Cave in 
Kentucky. Two hundred miles of ave- 
nues, passages and vaulted chambers are 
opened to visitors and it is well known that 
the cave is by no means fully explored. 
From a descriptive sketch by Dr. E. 
Ellsworth Call, a careful student of the 
Mammoth Cave and its conditions, the 
following facts of interest have been se- 
lected : 

Mammoth Cave owes its discovery to an 
accident, so the story goes, which happened 
in the year 1809. It is the old story of a 
hunter and a bear, the pursuer and the pur- 
sued. The bear was wounded and sought 
its lair in a vain endeavor to escape. 
Hutchins, for such was the hunter's name, 
lost no time in acquainting others with 
this important discovery, and Mammoth 
Cave became both a fact of history and 
science. It is strange to relate that its 
first exploitation was connected with 
simply mercenary motives and that salt- 
peter intended for use in gunpowder, and 
connected with the War of 1812, was the 
incentive that led to more complete exami- 
nation. The men who mined the salt soil, 
rich in niter, are the men who first gave 
to the outside world any reliable informa- 
tion of the great extent of this now fa- 
mous world's wonder. 

Within the cavern the changes which 
have occurred since the days of saltpeter 
are few. There is only that change which 
comes from wider acquaintance with the 
windings of the chambers into those that 
are new and formerly unknown, a change 
which makes the visitor despair of ever 



fully unraveling all the passages and crev- 
ices along which he journeys or through 
which he crawls. Bridges over rivers and 
stairs leading up impassable cliffs, the iron 
guards along places of danger, alone tell 
the visitor of the work of man. 

It is impossible to mention all the ob- 
jects of interest to visitors in this most 
gigantic cavern. The Fairy Grotto, the 
Gothic Avenue, Martha's Vineyard, Crys- 
tal Avenue, Echo Eiver, Gorin's Dome, the 
Giant's Cofiin, the Corkscrew, the Standing 
Rocks, the Rotunda, Audubon's Avenue, 
Spark's Bower, Lover's Leap, the Ruins of 
Karnak, Shelby's Dome, and a multitude of 
other special sights are shown to every vis- 
itor. 

The Echo River is one of the most re- 
markable features in this most remarkable 
group of wonders. Only a small portion o£ 
its whole course is accessible to visitors, 
but this part is truly wonderful. At times 
the river flows with almost imperceptible 
current, while at other times it fills quite 
to the top the great River Hall, blotting 
out the Dead Sea and the River Styx, both 
of which are really parts of the under- 
ground stream. It is traversed by boats 
for a distance of half a mile, and the ride 
over its clear waters is one of the unique 
experiences of the world. ISTowhere else 
can it be duplicated. The voyager passes 
under a low arch for a short space, and 
then the roof rises rapidly away from the 
water and he enters upon his subterranean 
water journey in real fact. E"early all the 
river is one vast resonator. Its branching 
avenues and side crevices, its lofty roof of 
limestone rock, its ancient battlemented 
shores, all serve as reflectors of every 
sound, no matter how slight, and send it 
back intensified a thousand times, with its 



^mazing tOonder^ of J^alure 



453 



roughness blended into one sweet volume 
of glorious harmony. 

Perhaps visitors to i\Laumioth Cave are 
most impressed with the loftj domes and 
deep pits which are found in some portions 
of this underground domain. Of those 
that are accessible to the visitor without 
o-TCPt dancer and fatigue, the best known 





I 


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^HV Xifp" 




H^^ 


^^K ^' 




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HIHh 



THE BOTTOMLESS PIT, MAMMOTH CAVE. 

are Gorin's Dome, the Bottomless Pit, 
Mammoth Dome, ISTapoleon's Dome, the 
Maelstrom and Scylla and Charybdis, all 
but two of which are situated in that in- 
tricate and wonderful portion called the 
Labyrinth, The first named is viewed 
through a natural circular opening in the 
wall, quite three-fourths of the way from 



the bottom. Illuminated by the guide from 
a point still above that at which the visitor 
is situated, the effect through the brilliant 
lights on the walls beyond, white as ala- 
baster, folded in a thousand curious and 
fantastic forms, is indescribably grand 
and impressive. Coupled with the great 
size of the space, everywhere shading off 
into infinite gloom, is the roar of fall- 
ing water or the splash of Lilliputian 
cascades if seen in the dry season. 
Below, but beyond observation, is a 
portion of Echo River into which 
from a station high above it is possi- 
ble to throw stones, the fall of which 
awakens ten thousand sounds and 
echoes. Stalactite matter of purest 
white, lends a variety to the vertical 
walls. 'Not far away is the Bottom- 
less Pit, and above it, rising sheer to 
the topmost level of the cavern, is 
Shelby's Dome. Its bottom, for not- 
withstanding its name it has one, is 
nearly two hundred feet below the 
level at which the observer stands. 

Of all the pits which the visitor 
sees, that called Mammoth Dome is 
the largest and most impressive. 
From the top to the bottom the dis- 
tance is nearly 280 feet, while at the 
end the Ruins of Karnak stand out 
in bold relief. These giant columns 
closely resemble the works of art of 
some long lost underground race. 
Far from the Mammoth Cave of Ken- 
tucky, in the Black Hills of Soiith Dakota, 
is another great cavern called the Wind 
Cave, which was discovered in 1877. Three 
thousand rooms have been discovered in it, 
varying in size from an ordinary bedroom 
to more than three acres, and over a hun- 
dred miles of passages have been explored 



454 



.^mazing tOonder^ of /Mature 



without finding the end. Out of fourteen 
different routes, three have been opened to 
the public. Its geological formation is a 
puzzle to the student, as the formations 
have no parallel in other vpell-known caves, 
and seem to upset many well-established 
theories. Another mystery is the fact that 
at times the wind blows into the cave at 
the mouth and at other times blows out, 
but when blowing a gale it is felt only at 
the entrance. ■ 

Other caverns, large and small, have 
been discovered in the United States, in- 
cluding some of great interest in Colorado, 
and others in JSTew Mexico. This country 
is not unique in such works of nature, but 
we seem to have by far the largest and most 
beautiful of all, and Mammoth Cave is by 
all means the most famous and the most 
commonly visited. 

THE LAND OF THE MIDNIGHT 

SUN 

The entire Arctic and Antarctic regions 
may be properly called the "Land of the 
Midnight Sun," for at the poles darkness 
rules for six months in the year, and just 
within the Arctic and Antarctic circles the 
sun may actually be seen at midnight. In 
practice, however, the north coast of ITor- 
way has become known by this phrase, for 
it is the most accessible place where the 
striking and picturesque phenomenon of 
sunshine at midnight can be seen. To 
reach the polar region elsewhere means a 
genuine Arctic voyage, attractive enough 
for the explorer, but quite out of the ques- 
tion for the casual tourist. To see the mid- 
night sun off the coast of Norway, however, 
it is necessary only to buy a ticket and 



board one of the fine vessels, built like 
great yachts, which make a voyage to the 
North Cape and beyond every summer, 
from various European ports. The entire 
coast of Norway, skirted during these voy- 
ages, is characterized by bold and beauti- 
ful scenery, with great cliffs, deep inlets or 
fjords, and mammoth glaciers. Water- 
falls tumble from the heights above, and 
the life of the people in the little Norwe- 
gian villages is no less picturesque than the 
natural beauties of the region. 

Hammerfest, the most northern town of 
Europe, is the metropolis of the Arctic re- 
gions, and the port from which many polar 
exploring expeditions have taken their de- 
parture from civilization. During the two 
summer months, the sun remains continu- 
ally above the horizon and the climate be- 
comes very warm. Even in the winter, 
when darkness rules for two months, the 
weather is mild enough to permit the fish- 
eries to be carried on as usual. 

Then comes the North Cape, the extrem- 
est point in Europe, looking out over the 
Arctic Ocean. It is a dark, gray, slate 
rock, furrowed with deep clefts, rising 
nearly 1,000 feet abruptly from the sea. 
The traveler lands on the east side of the 
Cape, where a path has been constructed 
over the green, mossy slope to the top. 
Here the hour of midnight is awaited, 
when the northern sun, creeping along the 
horizon, and the immeasurable ocean in 
apparent contact with the skies, form the 
grand outlines in the sublime picture pre- 
sented. With the North Cape ends the 
island belt, and the coast is washed di- 
rectly by the sweeping waves of the Arctic 
Ocean. Beyond is the region of mystery, 
which is gradually being penetrated year 
after year, a few miles at a time, by those 



.^yifnaztng XOonder^ of J^ature 



455 



j)ersevering explorers who are seeking the 
pole. 

Says an appreciative writer, speaking of 
conditions in this far-northern region: 
"The polar night in the highest latitudes 
begins in October and lasts until nearly 
February. Then the sun appears each day, 
at first for a moment only, and then longer 
and longer, till by May it does not set at 
all. For three months there is perpetual 



living has been making preparation for 
this. The sea animals, except the few 
hardy enough to brave the ice-covered 
depths, have departed. The birds and 
many land animals have moved southward, 
where food and shelter are surer. The peo- 
ple, all Eskimos, have given up their seal 
hunts in the extreme north, and have built 
their winter hxits out of ice blocks in some 
favored nook, or contiguous to some well- 




THE MIDNIGHT SUN, OFF THE NORTH COAST OF NORWAY. 



day. For three months more the days 
rapidly shorten. By the time October is 
past, darkness is on again and the Pole is 
wrapped in long night and inclement win- 
ter. E'ature then takes on its fantastic 
ice forms. Freezing is sudden and per- 
sistent. Storms are violent and of long 
duration. The seas are ice-bound, the rivu- 
lets locked in silence, the land covered with 
an immense depth of snow. Everything 



known resort of the seal or walrus. In these 
they doze away their tedious winter exist- 
ence, warmed and lighted by lamps burn- 
ing fat, and fed by blubber, which is mostly 
eaten raw. If they open for a moment a 
window or doorway, the confined air of 
their huts is immediately precipitated in 
the form of a shower of snow, 

"When the sun reappears, to shine per- 
petually for the summer months, the 



456 



,^inazing ISi^onderj- of /falure 



cliange is great. Weai as its rays are, tliey 
constantly serve to break np the strongest 
ice fields and loosen the stoutest packs. 
There is a commotion in the frozen seas 
more dangerous than a tempest. The ice 
groans and labors. It cracks with thun- 
derous reports. Huge mountains topple 
and fall. And then, when fields and floes 
are sufficiently broken to obey the currents, 
whole areas, large as a state, float away, 
bearing unlucky ships or whatever they 
may have imprisoned. By the end of June 
the ice of the Arctic sea is commonly di- 
vided and scattered. Then there is exces- 
sive moisture everywhere, and thick fogs 
hang over land and water, almost inces- 
santly. But in July the water no longer 
chills the atmosphere and precipitates 
moisture. It is a bright month and in 
sheltered spots the heat may become exces- 
sive. This heat, together with the absence 
of man and the loneliness of nature, is 
taken advantage of by myriads of animals 
from the air, land and sea. They congre- 
gate in the cliffs to lay eggs and hatch 
broods, gather in quiet nooks to bring forth 
their young, or swarm in shoal waters to 
spawn. 

"Do not expect to find much verdure in 
the Arctic region. Even before you enter 
the Arctic circle you will notice that trees 
have been getting smaller in size, and that 
only the hardier ones, as the birches and 
pines, exist at all. Passing on, the trees 
disappear entirely except in sheltered spots. 
About the Pole is an immense zone desti- 
tute of all trees. The only vegetation con- 
sists of lichens, mosses and a few varieties 
of stunted grasses, with here and there, in 
protected places, a trailing plant or two. 
Though nature generally wears a more 
stern and forbidding aspect on advancing 



toward the Pole, yet these high latitudes 
have many beauties of their own. [iSToth- 
iug can exceed the beauties of an Arctic 
sunset, clothing the snow-clad mountains, 
fantastic ice shapes and clear skies with all i 
the glories of color, nor can anything be 
more serenely beautiful than the clear, 
starlit night, illuminated by the moon, ; 

which is seen like a shield of burnished sil- . j 
ver through the highly rarefied air, and ■ 

circles for days around the horizon, never 
setting until she has run her long course ! 

of brightness. t 

''But of all the magnificent spectacles 
that relieve the gloom of the Arctic winter, 
there is none so gorgeously resplendent as 
the Aurora Borealis. It bursts with the 
suddenness of a storm, as indeed it is an 
electrical storm, upon the northern hori- 
zon, and speeds to the zenith in a great ■ 
arch of flame, heaving and waving to and 
fro, sending out flashing beams, playing i 
the tricks of meteors in color and velocity. 
Then there is a gathering of splendors in 
the center of the magnificent arch. The 
brilliancy of the meteoric streams grows \ 
more intense. The red color of their base, i 

the green of their middle, the yellow of i 
their tips become deeper and more vivid. 
They dart with greater vivacity through 
the skies ; the earth itseK is clothed with a ; 
magical light; the sea, where unfrozen, 
and the ice fields, gleam with a strange and 
weird beauty. Heaven and earth tremble 
in their outlines as if all were unreal, and 
night hides the charm of the spectacle by 
her imposing silence. Gradually the crown 
fades, the brilliant bow' dissolves, the 
streams shorten, the meteoric play is less 
vivid and frequent, the storm subsides, and 
the gloom of winter succeeds the midnight 
magnificence." 



^yiinazin^ XOonder^ of J>fature 



457 



NIAG-ARA FALLS 

The tremendous cataract of Niagara 
Falls, with the wonderful rapids above and 
below, has been recognized for centuries as 
one of the greatest natural wonders of the 
world. From the time of the first discov- 
ery by Europeans until to-day, ISTiagara has 
been sought by travelers who thought them- 
selves well repaid for a journey of any 
length when they stood for their first view 
of the Falls, upon the verge of the preci- 
pices that look upon it. 

The earliest account which we have of 
the Falls was written by the missionary 
priest, lather Louis Hennepin, and printed 
in his "[N'ew Discovery" in 1697. It would 
be difficult to find a more picturesque trav- 
eler's tale than the good priest told as it 
is quoted herewith, and he may be par- 
doned his extravagances when we remember 
that he had never seen anything of the sort 
before. 

"Betwixt the lakes of Ontario and Erie, 
there is a vast and prodigious cadence of 
water, which falls down after a surprising 
and astounding manner ; insomuch that the 
universe does not afford its parallel. 'Tis 
true, Italy and Suedland boast of some such 
things, but we may well say they are but 
sorry patterns when compared with this 
of which we now speak. At the foot of this 
horrible precipice we meet with the river 
I^iagara, which is not above a quarter of 
a league broad, but is wonderfully deep in 
some places. It is so rapid above this 
descent that it violently hurries down the 
wild beasts while endeavoring to pass it to 
feed on the other side, they not being able 
to withstand the force of its current, which 
inevitably casts them headlong, above six 
bundred feet high. This wonderful down- 



fall is compounded of two great cross 
streams of water and two falls, with an isle 
sloping along the middle of it. The waters 
which fall from this horrible precipice do 
foam and boil after the most hideous man- 
n'er imaginable, making an outrageous 
noise, more terrible than that of thunder, 
for when the wind blows out of the south, 
their dismal roaring may be heard more 
than fifteen leagues off." 

Since Father Hennepin's time, multi- 
tudes of poets, artists and prose writers have 
painted with word or brush the glories of 
IS^iagara, and millions have visited it. In 
the space here at command, it would be a 
fruitless effort to attempt a description 
which would be satisfactory either to writer 
or reader. This American wonder, so stu- 
pendous, so beautiful and so accessible, 
should be visited by all. The curve of the 
gigantic Horseshoe, the green wooded isl- 
ands, the ponderous curtain of the Amer- 
ican Fall, the gorges, the rapids, the whirl- 
pool and the surroundings offer inexhaust- 
ible scenes of marvelous beauty and of 
great variety. 

The wide-traveled, judicial-minded and 
discriminating Anthony TroUope penned 
the deliberate opinion : "Of all the sights 
on this earth of ours which tourists travel 
to see, I am inclined to give the palm to 
the Falls of ISTiagara. In the catalogue of 
such sights, I intend to include all beauties 
of nature prepared by the Creator for the 
delight of His creatures. I know of no other 
one thing so beautiful, so glorious, and so 
powerful. At Magara there is that fall of 
waters alone. But that fall is more grace- 
ful than Giotto's Tower, more noble than 
the Apollo. The peaks of the Alps are not 
so astounding in their solitude. The val- 
leys of the Blue Mountains in Jamaica are 




(By courtesy of the Michigan Central Eailroad.) 

NIAGARA FALLS, THE WORLD-FAMED CATARACT. 
Showing the American Fall, Goat Island and the Horseshoe Fall from Prospect Point 



yitnazm^ 'Wonders of J^ature 



459 



less green. The finished glaze of life in 
Paris is less invariable, and the full tide 
of trade round the Bank of England is not 
so inexorably powerful." 

WONDERS OF THE DEEP SEA 

The time may come when there will be 
no portion of the earth's surface that has 
not been surveyed and explored by man. 
The work of enterprising travelers has now 
been carried on Avithin a measurable dis- 
tance of the Xorth Pole ; the highest moun- 
tain ranges are gradually succumbing to 
the geological surveyor ; the heart of Africa 
is giving up to us its secrets and its treas- 
ures, and all the desert places of the earth 
are being visited. The bottom of the deep 
sea was until quite recently one of these 
unknown lands. It was regarded by most 
persons as one of those regions about which 
we do not know anything, and never shall 
know anything, and do not want to know 
anything. 

But the men of science fifty yearr ago 
were not disposed to take this view c .' tlie 
matter. Pushing their inquiries as t. the 
character of the sea fauna into deeper and 
deeper water, they at length demanded in- 
formation as to the existence of forms of 
life in the greatest depths. Since that time, 
by the aid of various government appropri- 
ations and scientific expeditions, a large 
amount of information has been placed at 
our command about this most interesting 
region. 

Hardly more than fifty years ago, the 
methods of deep sea investigation were so 
imperfect that naturalists believed life to 
be practically non-existent in the abysses 
of the great ocean. Various navigators and 
scientists, prior to that time, had recorded 



isolated discoveries of strange creatures, 
brought up from the depths of the sea on 
their sounding lines, but the facts were not 
scientifically classified, nor do they eon- 
tribute much to the knowledge of ocean 
depths. Americans were pioneers in these 
investigations, and in 1853 two officers of 
the American Coast Survey made one of the 
most important discoveries of an inhabited 
region at the bottom of the sea. In 1860 
the doctor on board a British man-of-war 
collected thirteen star-fish from a depth of 
1,260 fathoms. The ISTorwegians and the 
Swedes, likewise, became active about the 
same time. 

The physical conditions of the abyss of 
the great oceans are such that it is not sur- 
prising that the naturalists of the early 
part of the last century could not believe 
in the existence of life at the bottom of the 
deep sea. The extraordinary conditions of 
such a region, the enormous pressure, the 
absolute darkness, the probable absence of 
any vegetable life from want of direct sun- 
light, might very well have been considered 
sufficient to form an impassable barrier to 
animals migrating from the shalloAV waters, 
and to prevent the development of a fauna, 
peculiarly its own. The peculiar physical 
conditions of the deep sea may be briefly 
stated to be these : It is absolutely dark, so 
far as actual sunlight is concerned; the 
temperature is only a few degrees above 
the freezing point; the pressure is enor- 
mous; there is little or no movement of 
the water; the bottom is composed of a 
uniform fine, soft mud, and there is no 
plant life. 

At a depth of 2,500 fathoms, the pres- 
sure is, roughly speaking, two and one-half 
tons per square inch, that is to say, several 
times greater than the pressure exerted by 



460 



^ylinaxing VCfonderj- of /falure 



the steam upon the piston of our most pow- 
erful engine, or, to put the matter in other 
words, the pressure per square inch upon 
the body of every animal that lives at the 
bottom of the Atlantic ocean is about 
twenty-iive times greater than the pressure 
that will drive a railway train. 

It is but reasonable to suppose that the 
ability to sustain this enormous pressure 
can be acquired by animals only after gen- 



plunged into very deep water. The fish 
that live at these enormous depths are in 
consequence of the enormous pressure liable 
to a curious form of accident. If in chas- 
ing their prey or for any other reason they 
rise to a considerable distance above the 
floor of the ocean, the gases of their swim- 
ming bladder become considerably ex- 
panded and their specific gravity very great- 
ly reduced. Up to a certain limit the 




STOMIAS BOA. HALF NATURAL SIZE. PROM A DEPTH OF A MILE AND A QUARTER. 



erations of gradual migrations from the si- 
lent shallow water. Those forms that are 
brought up by the dredges are usually killed 
and distorted by the enormous and rapid 
diminution of pressure in their journey to 
the surface and it is probable that shallow 
water forms would be similarly killed and 
crushed out of shape were they suddenly 



muscles of their bodies can counteract the 
tendency to float upwards, and enable the 
fish to regain its proper sphere of life at 
the bottom. But beyond that limit the 
muscles are not strong enough to drive the 
body downward and the fish becoming 
more and more buoyant as it goes, is grad- 
ually killed on its long and involuntary 



^yitnazing "GOonder^; of J^ature 



461 



journey to the surface of the sea. The deep 
sea fish then are exposed to a danger to 
which no other animals in this world are 
subject, namely, that of tumbling upwards. 
The most recent experiments that have 
been made tend to show that no sunlight 
whatever penetrates to a greater depth than 
half a mile. But although it is highly prob- 
able that not a glimmer of sunlight ever 
penetrates to the depths of the ocean, there 



globe according to the depth and the prox- 
imity of land and the presence of the 
neighboring volcanoes or the mouths of 
great rivers. 

It has not been determined yet with any 
degree of accuracy where we are to place 
the limit of vegetable life, but it seems 
probable that below a hundred fathoms no 
organisms excepting a few parasites are to 
be found that can be included in the veg- 




COLLOSENDEIS ARCUATUS, FROM A DEPTH OF ONE MILE. 



is in some places a very considerable illumi- 
nation, due to the phosphorescence of the 
inhabitants of the deep water. 

The floor of the ocean, if it were laid 
bare, would probably present a vast, undu- 
lating plain of fine mud. N'ot a rock, not 
even a stone, would be visible for miles. 
The mud varies in different parts of the 



etable kingdom. All plants except a few 
are dependent upon the influence of direct 
sunlight and since sunlight cannot pene- 
trate more than a few hundred fathoms of 
sea water, it is impossible for the plants 
to live below that depth. The absence of 
vegetable life is an important point, for it 
is in consequence necessary to bear in mind 



462 



,^fnazing XOonder^ of J^ature 



that the food ot deep sea animals must be 
derived from the surface. It is possible 
that the creatures of the deep sea in some 
cases feed upon one another, but the fauna 
would soon become exhausted if it had no 
other sources of food supply. This other 
source of supply is derived from the bodies 
of organisms that fall from the upper 
waters of the ocean. 

Xow let us note briefly a few points of 
interest about the creatures themselves that 
have been found. The different oceans and 
different depths, roughly speaking, show 
distinct characteristics in the life found 
therein, as truly as do the different con- 
tinents of the world. So the scientists have 
marked out the different zones and localities 
on it. Strangely enough the creatures of 
the deep sea vary in color to a very re- 
markable extent. Shades of red occur 
rather more frequently than they do in the 
fauna of any other zone or region and thpre 
are no blue animals known to live in deep 
water, while green, also, is extremely rare 
in the greatest depths. The eyes of the 
animals that live in deep sea water undergo 
curious modifications. In the majority of 
cases, we find that the eyes are either very 
large or very small. In depths of 300 to 
600 fathoms the majority are large eyed 
forms. This is as we should expect, for it 
is more than probable that many of these 
forms occasionally wander into the shal- 
lower waters where there is a certain 
amount of sunlight. In depths of over one 
mile, the small eyed and blind forms are in 
the majority, although many large eyed 
forms are to be found. 

In these abysmal depths are found repre- 
sentatives of all the great classes of marine 
life which are recognized, from the true 
fish, which are of the highest order, through 



crustaceans, mollusks and seaworms to the 
lowest forms of protozoa, coelentera and 
echinoderma. The species are not large in 
comparison with those known to us in shal- 
lower depths, but range in size from minute 
forms to some which measure eight or ten 
inches in length. It may be a little puzzling 
to understand exactly what profit can come 
from costly investigations of these abysmal 
depths, and the answer must be found in 
the broad generalization that all knowledge 
is valuable, and the more we know about 
this world of ours the better No land has 
yet been found where life does not exist, 
and the most profound depths of the sea, 
miles below the surface, are likewise found 
to be teeming with life. IS^ature's wonders 
are everywhere, and the true scientist de- 
sires to learn of the most obscure and the 
most remote things as truly as of those 
which are near and obvious. 

EXTINCT MONSTERS 

Menageries and zoological gardens have 
given to every one a pretty fair idea of the 
characteristics of animal life to-day. These 
are supplemented by a wealth of fine pic- 
tures which make the rarest creatures fa- 
miliar enough in appearance. But there 
Avere wonderful creatures here in this earth 
before man was created, and but few of 
them are known by name or appearance, 
to the average reader of to-day. And yet 
the actual appearance and habits of life of 
these extinct monsters which lived thous- 
ands of years ago can be conceived with 
some accuracy, thanks to the studies of 
learned men who have searched deep in the 
science of comparative anatomy. Various 
technical works exist upon this subject, and 
at least one popular account of the form? 



/Imazing tOonders of J^ature 



46.^ 



of ancient animal life. From the latter, 
by the Eev, H. X. Hutchinson, the follow- 
ing interesting facts are summarized. 

Let us remember that it is not mere 
imagination that guides the man of science 
in such matters, for all his conclusions are 
intended to be based on reason. For mil- 
lions of years countless multitudes of living 
animals have played their little parts on the 
earth and passed away, to be buried in the 



Down in those old seas and lakes she 
kept her great museum in order to preserve 
for us a selection of her treasures. In the 
course of time she slowly raised up sea beds 
and lake bottoms to make them into dried 
land. This museum is everywhere around 
us. We have but to enter stone quarries 
and railway cuttings, or to search in coal 
mines or under cliffs at the seaside, and 
we can consult her records. 




A GIGANTIC ARMORED DINOSAUR. LENGTH, ABOUT THIRTY FEET. 



oozy beds of the seas of old times or en- 
tombed with the leaves that sank in the wa- 
ters of primeval lakes. The majority of 
these perished beyond all recovery, leav- 
ing not a trace behind. Yet a vast number 
of fossilized remains have been in vari- 
ous ways preserved, sometimes almost as 
completely as if Dame Xature had thought- 
fully embalmed them for our instruction 
and deHght, 



It is to Cuvier that the world owes the 
first systematic application of the science 
of comparative anatomy and palaeontology, 
as the science is called which treats of the 
living beings, animal, or vegetable, which 
have inhabited this globe at past periods in 
its history. He paid great attention to the 
relative shapes of animals, and the dif- 
ferent developments of the same kind of 
bones in the various animals and especiallj^ 



464 



^yifnazing XOonders of J^ature 



to the nature of their teeth. So great did 
his experience and knowledge become that 
he rarely failed in the naming of an ani- 
mal from a part of its skeleton. He ap- 
preciated more clearly than others before 
him the mutual dependence of the different 
parts of an animal's organization. "The 
organism," he said, "forms a connected 
unity in which the single parts cannot 
change without modifications in the other 
parts." 

As he progressed in these studies, Cuvier 
was able with considerable success to re- 
store extinct animals from their fossilized 
remains, to discover their habits and man- 
ner of life, and to point out their nearest 
living allies. To him we owe the first com- 
plete demonstration of the possibility of 
restoring an extinct animal. His "law of 
correlations," however, has been found to 
be not infallible, but like other laws hav- 
ing its exceptions. To take one out of 
many examples of this law: carnivorous 
animals, such as cats, lions and tigers, have 
claws in their feet, very different from the 
hoofs of an ox, which is herbivorous, while 
the teeth of the former group are very dif- 
ferent from those of the latter. Thus the 
teeth and limbs have a certain definite re- 
lation to each other, or in other words are 
correlated. Again, horned quadrupeds are 
all graminivorous (grain-eating) and have 
hoofs to their feet. The following anec- 
dote serves to illustrate Cuvier's law. One 
of his students thought he would try to 
frighten the master, and having dressed 
up as a wild beast, entered Cuvier's bed- 
room by night and presenting himself by 
his bedside, said, in hollow tones : "Cuvier, 
Cuvier, I have eome to eat you." The 
great naturalist, who, on waking up was 
^ble to (Jiscem something with horng and 



hoofs, simply remarked: "What! Horns 
— Hoofs ! Graminivorous. You can't." 

It is impossible to describe in detail all 
of the greater extinct monsters which in- 
habited the earth, the ocean or the air, and 
thousands of smaller creatures are well- 
known and identified in museums which 
cannot even be suggested here. All we can 
do is to speak briefly of a few of the most 
interesting or peculiar. For instance, on 
the coast of Great Britain there lived sea 
scorpions, possessing a coat of armor, 
jointed bodies and limbs for crawling, 
swimming or seizing their prey. They 
were distant cousins of the crustaceans of 
the present day, lobsters, crabs and 
shrimps, but they measured at least six 
feet in length. 

In the same waters, and about the same 
time, dwelt the old fish lizard or ichthyo- 
saurus. Cuvier, describing it, said of this 
creature that it possessed the snout of a 
dolphin, the teeth of a crocodile, the head 
and breast bone of a lizard, the paddles 
of a whale or dolphin, and the vertebrae of 
a fish. It was a powerful monster, swim- 
ming rapidly enough to catch the fish upon 
which it lived. The long and pointed jaws 
were a striking feature of these animals, 
and their eyes were very powerful and 
large. The largest entire skeleton pre- 
served in a museum measures twenty-two 
feet long, and eight f^et across the ex- 
panded paddles, but from detached heads 
and parts of skeletons it is probable that 
some of them were between thirty and 
forty feet long. Then there were long 
necked sea-lizards known as the plesio- 
saurus, which, to the head of a lizard united 
the teeth of a crocodile, a neck of enormous 
length, resembling the body of a serpent, 
^ tail and body haying the proportions of 



^/imazing 'Wonders of /Mature 



465 



an crdinarv quadruped, and the paddles 
of a whale. These also grew to a length of 
more than twentj-two feet. More than 
twenty species of these long necked sea- 
lizards are known to geologists. 

Was there ever an age of dragons \ Tra- 
dition sajs there was, but there is every 
reason to believe that the fierce and blood- 
thirsty creatures, of which such a variety 
'""resent themselves, are but creatures of the 



an order comprising the largest reptiles 
that ever lived ; and while some of them in 
a general way resemble crocodiles, others 
show in the bony structures they have left 
behind a very remarkable and interesting- 
resemblance to birds of the ostrich tribe. 
Their remains are found not only in 
Europe, but in Africa, India, America and 
even in Australia. The geologist finds that 
they reigned supreme on the earth through- 




A GIGANTIC HORXED DINOSAUR. LENGTH, ABOUT TWENTT-FIVK FEET. 



imagination based, no doubt, on the huge 
uncouth reptiles of the present human era, 
such as crocodiles and other creatures. 
Xevertheless in spite of all manifest ab- 
surdities of the dragons of various nations 
and times, geology reveals to us that there 
once lived upon this earth reptiles so great 
and uncouth that we can think of no other 
but the time honored word "dragon" to 
convey the slightest idea of their monstrous 
forms and characters. The dinosaurus was 



out the whole of the great mesozoic era. 
Their bodies were in some cases defended 
by a formidable coat of armor, consisting 
of bony plates and spines, thus giving them 
a decidedly dragon-like appearance. They 
all had four limbs and in many cases the 
hind pair were very large compared to the 
fore limbs. The largest of the family were 
truly colossal in size, far excelling the 
rhinoceros and elephant of to-day. 

One division of this family was the 



466 



^ylmazing tOonderj of /Mature 



brontosaurus, a vegetable feeding lizard. 
It was nearly sixty feet long and probably, 
when alive, weighed more than twenty 
tons. Each track made by the creature in 
walking occupied one square yard in ex- 
tent. Its remains are found in the Juras- 
sic rocks in Colorado. Another member of 
the dinosaur family, the atlantasaurus, 
must have obtained a length of over eighty 
feet, and assuming that it walked upon its 



about like bats and flying foxes do now. 
The scientists called them pterodactyls, but 
they may very properly be termed "flying 
dragons." Some were no larger than small 
birds, but the largest had a spread of wing, 
or rather of the flying membranes, of twen- 
ty-five feet. Imagine a flock of these hover- 
ing over an antediluvian landscape, in 
Avhich the anim.al life below them was sup- 
plied by eighty-foot dinosaurs and sea 




GROUP OP SMALL FLYING 



hind feet, a height of thirty feet. A thigh 
bone of one of these has been found entire, 
and it measures six feet and two inches in 
length. Colorado has yielded large num- 
bers of most interesting fossils of this va- 
riety. Some of them were carnivorous, 
and some were diminutive creatures only 
two feet in length. 

In addition to the dinosaurs or land 
dragons, there was another great order of 
reptiles that acquired the power of flying 



TERODACTYLS. 



scorpions six feet long. Skeletons of sea 
serpents to a length of eighty feet have 
been found in the fossil deposits of Kansas. 
ISTow we come to the great mammals of 
the past, animals not entirely unlike some 
that we know now, although immensely 
larger. America has been one of the most 
fruitful sources of information concerning 
these great creatures. In Wyoming have 
been found skeletons of a great animal 
called the tinoceras, Avhich ^vas ^kin to tho 



,yiinaz,ing tOonder^ of J^aiure 



407 



rhinoceros, the elephant, the hippopotamus, 
and which measured about twelve feet in 
length -without the tail. Its weight, when 
alive, is calculated to have been three tons. 
Great numbers of bones of these creatures 
have been found. Another equally pictur- 
esque creature found east of the Eocky 
Mountains was the brontops, still larger, 
with toes instead of elephant-like feet. 
India, too, has yielded some strange 



creatures of the past whose names are most 
familiar to us, because they have come in- 
to the language and because they are not 
so long extinct as some of the strange crea- 
tures heretofore described. Approximately 
whole specimens of these primeval ele- 
phants have been found in the frozen 
regions of Siberia, preserved in the ice. 
The mammoth, indeed, has been actually 
and not onlv seen but 




-•'1 ■'^^^/ ':-'-■". »' 




A GIGAXTIC ARMADILLO 

monsters, including huge ones not unlike 
the moose of to-day, and a gigantic tortoise 
found complete as a fossil. From South 
America we obtain remains of gigantic 
mammals allied to sloths, ant-eatei-s and 
armadillos. The length of the best pre- 
served specimen of these sloths is eighteen 
feet. The gigantic representative of the 
armadillo from South America is a huge 
armored creature more than eight feet long. 
The mammoth and the mastodon are the 



FROM BUEXOS AYRES 



LENGTH, XIXE FEET. 



eaten both by men and animals, although 
the meat had -been frozen perhaps for sev- 
eral centuries. Fossils, remains of these 
elephants, have been found in Europe, 
Africa, Asia and Xorth America. There 
is to-day a large trade in the ivory of the 
mammoth from Siberia, both eastward to 
China and westward to Europe. Various 
islands along the Siberian coast yield the 
huge tusks in great number. The most 
perfect specimen exists in the museum of 



,ytfnazing Ve/onderj^ of J^ature 



the St. Petersburg Academy, the skeleton 
complete all except one leg, the skin still 
attached to the head and feet, and a large 
quantity of the hair remaining. This mam- 
moth was discovered frozen in 1801 on the 
north coast of Siberia, and after several 
years was brought to St. Petersburg and 
mounted there. It had come to light by 
the thawing of a great block of ice which 
had covered it, and the people of the 
neighborhood had cut off the flesh and fed 
their dogs with it for two years before it 
was finally protected in the interest of 
science, and brought to Europe. There are 
at least nine cases on record of the dis- 
covery of frozen mammoths in northern 
Siberia, and it is not likely that the huge 
animal is long extinct. 

The mastodon was similar to the mam- 
moth, but probably preceded it in time. 
There is reason to think that in America 
it was contemporary with man in the pre- 
historic age. Numbers of partial speci- 
mens have been found in Kentucky, Ohio, 
Missouri, and other parts of the United 
States. 

Of all the monsters that ever lived on 
the face of the earth, the giant birds were 
perhaps the most grotesque. ISTew Zealand 
contributes the giant moa, a bird which 
stood twelve feet in height. The natives 
who were living at the time of the first 
white settlement of IsTew Zealand, about 
1840, declared the bird to be still in exist- 
ence, but it cannot be learned that any 
white man actually saw the living crea- 
tures, although a search was made for them. 
However, fragments of shell and feathers 
were found with the bones of the birds, so 
that it is quite certain they had not been 
long extinct. In 1882 the head, neck, two 
legs and feet of a moa were found in a 



cave, having the skin still preserved in a 
dried state covering the bones, and some 
few feathers of a reddish hue still attached 
to the leg. In the island of Madagascar, 
also, the remains of a giant bird and its 
eggs have been found. One of the eggs 
had a diameter of fourteen inches, and 
would contain more than two gallons, or as 
much as three ostrich eggs or 148 hen's eggs. 

The remains of a deer have been found 
in Ireland measuring in height to the sum- 
mit of the antlers, ten feet, with a spread of 
the antlers from tip to tip of eleven feet. 

It has been possible at this time to give 
only the briefest mention of some of the 
strangest and most gigantic of the extinct 
monsters which once inhabited this earth. 
They are all recognized as absolutely au- 
thentic by scientists, testified by the incon- 
trovertible proof of their remains, fossil 
or otherwise. In the era that preceded the 
birth of man, when animal life took these 
strange forms and vegetation was hardly 
less grotesque and gigantic in comparison 
with the world of to-day, is a field for study 
of unending interest and variety. What 
would Ave not give for actual landscape pho- 
tographs of those wonderful scenes ! 

MAN AND NATURE BEFORE THE 
DELUGE 

It is an accepted fact that the science of 
the earth and the wonders of nature have 
their culmination and terminus in man, the 
final link in the chain of life. A famous 
Canadian geologist. Sir J. W. Dawson, in 
one of his Avorks makes an interesting study 
to answer the question, if possible, how and 
when this chief cornerstone was placed 
upon the edifice of nature. He puts this 
in the form of a narrative, based on geo- 



^mazing XOonder4 of J^alure 



469 



logical facts only, and from his chapter on 
the subject of early man, the following par- 
agraphs are condensed. 

The glacial age had passed aAvay. The 
lower land, in great part a bare expanse of 
mud, sand and gravel, had risen from the 
icy ocean in which it had been submerged, 
and most of the mountain tops had lost 
their covering of perpetual snow and ice. 
The climate was ameliorated and the sun 



At this time, somewhere in the warm 
temperate zone, in an oasis or island of fer- 
tility, appeared a new thing on the earth. 
A man and woman, walking erect in the 
forest glades, bathing in the waters, gath- 
ering and tasting every edible fruit, watch- 
ing with curious and inquiring eyes the 
various animals around them, and giving 
them names which might eventually serve 
not merely to designate their kinds, but to 



^ 




STELLER'S SEA COW. LENGTH, THIRTY-FIVE' FEET. 
Found alive by Steller at Behring's Island in 1741, but extinct since that time. 



again shone warmly on the desolated earth. 
Gradually the new land became overspread 
with a ricH vegetation, and was occupied 
by many large animals. There were spe- 
cies of elephant, rhinoceros, horse, bison, 
ox and deer, multiplying until the plains 
and river valleys were filled with their 
herds, in spite of the fact that they were 
followed by formidable carnivorous beasts, 
fitted to prey on theiu 



express actions and emotions as well. 
How this event happened, science is still 
unable to answer, and though we may 
frame many hypotheses, they all remain 
destitute of certain proof in so far as nat- 
ural science is concerned. We can here 
only fall back on the old traditional and 
historical monument of our race, and be- 
lieve that man, the child of God and with 
God-like intellect, will and consciousness, 



470 



^^mazing XOonder^ of Mature 



was placed by his maker in an Edenic re- 
gion and coanmissioned to multiply and re- 
plenish the earth. The when and where of 
his introduction, and his early history, 
when introduced, are more open to scienti- 
fic investigation. 

That man was originally frugivorous, or 
fruit- and grain-eating, his whole structure 
testifies. That he originated in some fa- 
vorable climate and fertile land is equally 
certain, and that his surroundings must 
have been of such a nature as to give him 
immunity from the attacks of formidable 
beasts of prey also goes without saying. 
These are all necessary conditions of the 
successful introduction of such a creature 
as man, and theories which suppose him 
to have originated in a cold climate, to 
struggle at once with the difficulties and 
dangers of such a position are, from the 
scientific point of view, incredible. 

But man was introduced into the wide 
and varied world, more wide and varied 
than that possessed by his modern descend- 
ants. The earliest men that We certainly 
know inhabited our continents when, as we 
know, from ample geological evidence, the 
land of the northern hemisphere was much 
more extensive than at present, with a mild 
climate and a rich flora and fauna. If he 
was ambitious to leave the oasis of his re- 
gion, the way was open to him, but at the 
expense of becoming a toiler, an inventor 
and a feeder on animal food, more espe- 
cially when he should penetrate into the 
colder climates. The details of all this as 
they actually occurred are not within the 
range of scientific investigation, for these 
earlier men must have left few if any mon- 
uments, but we can imagine some of them. 
Man's hands were capable of other uses 
than the mere gathering of food ; his mind 



was not an instinctive machine like that of 
the lower animals, but an imaginative and 
inventive intellect, capable of adapting ob- 
jects to new uses, peculiar to himself. A 
fallen branch would enable him to obtain 
the fruits that hung higher than his hands 
could reach. A pebble would enable him 
to break a nut too hard for his teeth. He 
could easily weave a few twigs into a rough 
basket to carry the fruit he had gathered, 
to the cave or shelter or spreading tree or 
rough hut that served him for a home ; and 
when he had found courage to snatch a 
branch from some tree ignited by lighting, 
and to kindle a fire for himself, he had 
fairly entered on that path of invention 
and discovery which has enabled him to 
achieve so many conquests over nature. 

Our imagination may carry us yet a little 
farther with reference to his fortunes. If 
he needed any weapon to repel aggressive 
enemies, a stick or club would serve his 
purpose, or, perhaps, a stone thrown from 
his hands. Soon, however, he might learn 
from the pain caused by the sharp flints 
that lay in his path the cutting power of 
an edge, and armed with a flint chip held 
in the hand or fitted into a piece of wood 
he would become an artificer of many 
things, useful and pleasing. As he wan- 
dered into more severe climates where veg- 
etable foods could not be obtained through- 
out the year, as he observed the habits of 
beasts and birds of prey, he would learn 
to be a hunter and a fisherman and to cook 
animal food, and with this would come new 
habits, wants and materials as well as a 
more active and energetic mode of life. 

He would also have to make new weap- 
ons and implements, axes, darts, harpoons, 
scrapers for skins, and bodkins or needles 
to make skin garments. He would use 



,^maxtng 'Ce/onders of Mature 



471 



c^hipped flint where this could be procured, 
and, failing this, splintered and rubbed 
slate, and for some uses bone and antler. 
Much ingenuity would be used in shaping 
these materials, and in the working of 
bone, antler and wood, ornaments would be- 
gin to be studied. In the meantimej the 
hunter, though his weapons improved, 
would become a ruder and more migratory 
man, and in anger or in desire to gain 
Borae coveted object, might begin to use his 
weapons against his brother man. In some 
more favored locations, however, he might 
attain to a more settled life, and he, or 
more likely the woman, his helpmate, 
might contrive to tame some species of ani- 
mals and to begin some culture of the soil. 

It was probably at this early time that 
metals first attracted the attention of man. 
The ages of stone, bronze and iron believed 
in by some archaeologists are more or less 
mythical to the geologist, who knows that 
these things depend more on locality and 
on natural products than on stages of cul- 
ture. 

Probably all these ends had been to some 
extent and in some localities attained in 
the earliest human period, when man was 
contemporary with many large animals 
now extinct. But a serious change was to 
occur in human prospects. Hilltops, long 
denuded of the snow and ice of the glacial 
period, were again covered, and cold winter 
sealed up the lakes and rivers and covered 
the ground with wintry snows of long con- 
tinuance. With this came a change in ani- 
mal life and in human habits. Now began 
a fierce struggle for existence in the more 
northern districts inhabited by man, a 
struggle in which only the hardier and 
ruder races could survive, except, perhaps, 
in some of the more genial portions of the 



warm temperate zone. Men had become al- 
most Avholly carnivorous, and had to con- 
tend with powerful and fierce animals. 
Tribe contended with tribe for the posses- 
sion of the most productive and sheltered 
habitats. Thus the struggle with nature 
became aggravated by that between man 
and man. Violence disturbed the progress 
of civilization, and favored the increase of 
power of the rudest tribes, while the more 
delicately organized and finer types of hu- 
manity, if they continued to exist in some 
favored spots, were in constant danger of 
being exterminated by their fiercer and 
stronger contemporaries. 

In mercy to humanity this state of 
things was terminated by a great physical 
revolution, the last great subsidence of the 
continents, that post-glacial flood which 
must have swept away the greater part of 
men and many species of great beasts, and 
left only a few survivors to repeople the 
world, just as the mammoth and other gi- 
gantic animals had to give place to smaller 
and feebler creatures. In these vicissi- 
tudes it seemed determined, with refer- 
ence to man, that the more gigantic and 
formidable races should perish, and that 
one of the finer types should survive to re- 
people the world. 

Thus we have followed, as closely as sci- 
ence can interpret the chronicles, the prog- 
ress of mankind from the creation to the 
deluge, and his development of the natural 
conditions in which he found himself. It 
is a fascinating study and an inexhaustible 
one. As the poet has aptly said, "The 
proper study of mankind is man," and 
these pioneers of our race are entitled to 
full attention in connection with the other 
wonders of the natural world, which we 
have inherited from them. 



SOLID FOOD FOR SOUND MINDS 



READING THAT MAKES ONE WISER AND HAPPIER 



A COUNTRY BOY'S CHANCES IN A LARGE CITY 



AT a certain average age, begins tlie 
yearning for city life of the boy 
reared amid rural scenes. Then 
comes the "winter of discontent," which too 
often ends in his utter undoing. 

The abandonment of agricultural pur- 
suits by the country youth, and his entrance 
upon a city career, are likely to furnish a 
cause of trouble both in city and country. 

GROWING NEED OF "HELP" ON THE 
FARM. 

Agriculture now, more than ever, needs 
the service of all those bred to the farm 
and thoroughly familiar with its daily rou- 
tine. The summer of 1903 brought clamor- 
ous demands from numberless farms in the 
grain-growing states for help in caring for 
the waiting crops, and multitudes of farm- 
ers were only too willing to accept inferior 
workers at from $2 to $3 per day to meet 
the requirements of harvesting. 

CROWD INTO THE CITY. 

On the other hand, hosts of farm lads, 
dissatisfied with the simple and unvarying 
course of farm life which, from distorted 



views, had become monotonous and irksome 
to them, plunged into the uncertainties of 
the already thronged cities, only to discover 
that their expectations were illusive and 
vain. So crowded have become the avenues 
of business endeavor by seekers after cler- 
ical employment that commercial enter- 
prises in the important centers of trade can 
arbitrarily fix the wages paid to applicants 
for work. The conditions are such that 
great commercial houses while ever compet- 
ing for patronage, never compete for help, 
as necessity compelled in case of the farm- 
ers before mentioned. 

CAUSES OF OVER-SUPPLY OF Cni 
"HELP." 

The natural increase in the city popula- 
tion from births, the constant accretions 
from country sources, the large extent to 
which women and girls have been substi- 
tuted for men and boys in stores, offices, 
factories and shops, and the endless output 
of graduates from the business colleges, 
have barred the way to "positions" against 
thousands of disappointed people. 



474 



SOLID FOOD FOR SOUND MINDS 



ONLY THE FITTEST SURVIVE THE 
STRAIN. 

IJnless the boy from the country is the 
possessor of rare qualities, city life is likely 
to prove to him a delusion and a snare. 
Only the fittest, in such a change, can sur- 
vive the strain. As a rule, the youth bred 
to city life is much more likely to succeed 
than his country competitor for a job, be- 
cause he is imbued with the push of the 
bustling mart, and is thoroughly familiar 
with the surroundings. He is, moreover, 
less liable to succumb to the temptations 
that hedge about him because he is safe- 
guarded by the attractions and restraints of 
home. 

Let the country boy, except in rare in- 



stances, stay at home, at least until he has 
saved enough of his sure earnings to begin 
mature life in an independent way. Let 
the country boy remember that the country 
is better far than the great metropolis, for 
mental and moral development, and for the 
establishment of strong individual char- 
acter. The country, and the small town 
(not the city) give to the nation its tower- 
ing celebrities. What great scholars, ora- 
tors, theologians, scientists, lawyers, or 
statesmen have sprung from the environ- 
ments of a great municipality ? Let the 
wise country boy be mindful of these 
things, and stay where he is until he 
has laid the foundation of a successful 



VALUE AND CHARM OF A GOOD LETTER 



Letter writing will soon be numbered 
among the lost arts. It has come about 
through the increase in postal facilities that 
we have to write so many letters that we 
do not care to spend overmuch time on any 
one, or any series. The modem methods of 
travel which seem to have annihilated dis- 
tance, have given to correspondence less 
importance in our eyes than it formerly 
had. 

SCRIBBLING LETTERS COMMON. 

People no longer write letters ; they scrib- 
ble them. But what others do in this con- 
nection is, or should be, nothing to you. It 
is your creed that all things should be done 
well. In letter-writing, particularly, you 
wiU take great pride and pleasure. Your 



letters stand for you. Tou do not enter a 
friend's house, utter half a dozen poorly ex- 
pressed commonplaces, and then depart. 
'Nov should your letters show as little care. 
Eepresenting you, they should show you at 
your best. The envoys of your love, your 
friendship and your interests, you should 
see to it that nothing about them is disap- 
pointing. 

THE LETTER A MESSENGER OF ITS 
"WRITER. 

Every one of them has need to be a 
worthy messenger, now to console, now to 
amuse, now merely to pass the time of day. 
There is no present so sweet to receive as a 
beautiful letter. In your letters trivialities 
may have ample room. To those you love, 
they are very pleasing, running over with 



SOLID FOOD FOB SOUND MINDS 



475 



such little details as correspond with chat- 
tering, — little details, — the unimportant 
things that separation makes important. 
THE HEART SPEAKS. 
^N'othing more is required than that your 
heart should be in the matter. "The schol- 
ar sits down to write," says Emerson, "and 
all his years of meditation do not furnish 
him with one good thought or happy expres- 
sion; but it is necessary to write a letter 
to a friend — and forthwith, troops of gentle 
thoughts invest themselves on every hand 
with chosen words." 

GLOW OF AFEECTIONATE LETTER. 

An affectionate letter ! What a glow it 
leaves in the heart ! It is a disappointment 
when the postman passes the door. But to 
take pleasure in receiving letters is not con- 
sistent with a neglect in Avriting them. To 
be sure, they take up much time. But it 
seems very certain to you that the time is 



not wasted. It is so much pleasure that you 
can give away at the cost of a little red 
stamp. You make your letters members of 
your life. What you do, what you are, 
what you think, — that you set do\\-n, and 
all else that comes into your head. Your 
letters are very intimate. 

A GOOD LETTER MIRRORS THE MIND. 

A good letter is the mirror of the mind. 
It is something that flashes. It is an epi- 
gram. Herein lies not the least benefit of 
letter-writing — that many things must be 
set forth in so small a space. 

SPONTANEITY IN LETTER WRITING. 

Letters are never so cbanning as when 
tbey are written spontaneously — ^when they 
arrive tmexpectedly. Letter writing is 
hard work, and the mood for hard work is 
illusive. Practice writing; make your let- 
ters characteristic of yourself always. 



COURTESIES OF LIFE 



In the present scramble for wealth, posi- 
tion, rank and recognition, we are fast los- 
ing sight of the more important courtesies 
of life. The future of our families and, 
incidentally, the -n-ell-being of our old age 
depend more on our home existence than 
upon any advancement we may make in 
the different enterprises which occupy the 
minds of men. 

AMENITIES OF HOME LIFE. 

If some are indifferent enough to popular 
opinion to devote more time to the civilities 
of their homes than is the general custom, 
let us recognize the fact that their jtidgment 
is nearer riffht than that of others who are 



more prominent. While we must acknowl* 
edge the great social good accomplished by 
those who strive in the interest of the pub- 
lic, we must admit that the most useful 
sphere for American mothers and, in most 
cases, daughters, too, is the home. 

FAMILY TRAINING. 

Primitively, woman was a helpmeet, a 
complement, not another self — the two par- 
ties to marriage filling their respective 
spheres, forming a perfect unit, and yet with 
each one's work impossible to the other. In 
spite of all contrary opinion, woman's high- 
est mission is to guard the sacred preciuots 
of the home, for, before any other training 



476 



SOLID FOOD FOR SOUND MINDS 



whatever, comes the family training, — that 
preliminary training in which correct per- 
sonal habits, respectful treatment of elders 
and superiors, obedience to authority, cour- 
tesy and morality are inculcated. Freedom 
from home control in the young is painfully 
evident, showing the need of a closer watch 
and guard over the domestic circle, and the 
imbuing of offspring with a greater regard 
for parental authority and parental judg- 
ment. Children speak to their parents and 
act toward them in a manner that would 
have been shocking a few generations, ago. 

Many parents fail to exact the courtesy 
due them from their children, fearing that 
the child may consider it a vain assumption 
of dignity. This negligence is followed by 
a less respectful demeanor toward father 
and mother and those in authority. Cour- 
tesy, or true politeness, is not a garb to be 
put off and on at will. On the other hand, 
it improves with use. 

If we daily maintain the courtesies in 
home life which we extend to associates and 
acquaintances, our politeness in social cir- 
cles would not savor so much of affectation. 
Chesterfield advised his son to use good 
grammar even when talking to his dog, in 
order to acquire the habit of correct expres- 
sion. It is well to observe this rule with all 
the minor attainments which go to make Vis 
agreeable. Unless we respect ourselves 
enough to practice the common civilities, 
we cannot be anything but brusque and im- 
polite. Our manners are often self-con- 
scious, crude and vulgar. "If they don't 
like my way," says one, "they can take the 
less of it." Until such misdirected individ- 
uals enter into a circle the manners of which 



are more reserved and refined than their 
own, they have no realization of the fact 
that their ways are imacceptable, or that 
they are different from those of more agree- 
able people. 

Brusqueness is not always manifest in 
what one says, so much as in the manner of 
speaking of an ordinary matter, or in an 
abrupt entrance, a disrespectful or loung- 
ing attitude, or a noisy salutation. "Every 
heart knoweth its own bitterness," says the 
Holy Writ. And it is an unpardonable fa- 
miliarity, and also a display of egotism, to 
inflict upon others a minute description of 
the details of one's own small affairs. 
SINCERITY AND KINDLINESS. 

Anybodj' can recapitulate the troubles of 
the shop, of the kitchen, the nursery and 
the petty grievances of the neighborhood. 
We must learn to take human nature as we 
find it, and, at the same time, search for the 
brightest and best qualities among those 
with Avhom our lot is cast. Good Avill to our 
fellows and sincere motives should be the 
underlying principles which govern our in- 
tercourse Avith mankind. It is no hard task 
to cultivate a kindly feeling for others. 
There is no veneer that will stand the test 
of time. Our shallow courtesies may please 
for awhile, even if but occasionally as- 
sumed; but, in an imguarded moment oiir 
rougher self is revealed. The only solid ba- 
sis of true politeness is the possession of 
right principles and virtuous character, the 
leading of a true life. ISTatural kindliness 
of heart and sincerity of intention must be 
back of all oiir actions. Unfeigned courtesy 
is best acquired and maintained in the daily 
intercourse of our homes. 



SOLID FOOD FOB SOUND MINDS 



477 



THE HIGH SCHOOL AND ITS PART IN EDUCATION 

The American High School is an impor- percentage increases to 37.5 for the senior 

tant factor in the educational work of to- class. Among teachers the number who are 

day. In a state of the size of Illinois there normal school graduates gives a percentage 

are said to be 310 high schools. The same of 15.6, while the college graduates show a 

estimate holds good in other states* with percentage of 54.4. The number of teachers 

the same number of inhabitants. who hold master's and doctor's degrees is 

NUMBER OF STUDIES TAUGHT IN ILLI- large. 

NOIS HIGH SCHOOLS. These statistics constitute a fair average 

The number of study subjects offered in ^^^ ^^her states, with the excepti >n, pos- 

individual schools varies from 10 to 30. The ''^^J' «f ^^'"^ York and Pennsylvania, 

total number of studies taught in the Illi- ^he following table shows the hours de-- 

nois high schools is 49. Of these, eleven ^^^^^ ^o each branch of study: 

are termed constants — ^that is, they are at i a^t anr, 

^ J. 1 Algebra 47,560 

taught m more than / 5 per cent of the (. ^^^^^^.y. _pi^^^ 33^8^0 

schools-and eight of them are taught m Qe,^,try-Solid 10,960 

more than 85 per cent of the schools. These Trigonometry 1,010 

eleven branches in the order of their promi- a^ui, f ^'''40 

nence, are algebra, geometry, physics, bot- Bookk^epi" * V.V.V.V.V.V.V.V.* 7!610 

any, Latin, English literature, zoology. Descriptive geometry 63 

physiology, general history, civic history ^.^^.^.^j^ grammar 480 

and physiography. ^^^^.^^ composition 31,620 

Mathem.atics, literature, language and j^j^g^o^jg _ _ 20 860 

science, each has its place in almost every ^^^^.^^ literature! !!!!!.'!!!!!! 52^170 

high school of the state. The belief that Tfitin 100 3^0 

another constant is essential to the com- (German S^'^iO 

pleteness of this list is rapidly growing. ^^^^^^ ^ ..... ...... ..^'^... . 9^400 

The demand for manual training is gener- Qy.Qf,i- q'i90 

ally conceded, but there are as yet very few Qrvanio] '-ii-n 

instances of its introduction. c^^ pd'ah 4-40 

ATTENDANCE AT THE SCHOOLS. General history 30,410 

'Khe data in regard to attendance shows English and American history. . . 21,600 

the total enrollment of the schools reporting Ancient history 95 

to be 34,824. Of this number there are 11,- Greek and Eoman history 10,500 

773 boys and 23,051 girls. The total at- Mediaeval and modern history. .. . 670 

tendance of seniors is 4,390, with 1,655 French history 140 

boys and 2,735 girls. It is noted with en- Civics 15,200 

thusiasm that, while the total percentage of Political economy 2,210 

boys attending high schools is but 33.8, the Physics 38,660 



478 



SOLID FOOD FOB SOUND MINDS 



Chemistry 20,840 

Botany 19,650 

Zoology 19,070 

Biology 690 

Physiology 14,530 

Astronomy 4,740 

Physiography 14,880 

Geology 2,390 

Psychology 380 

Commercial geography 300 

Commercial law 2,320 

Constitutional history 45 

Drawing — Free-hand 9,630 



Drawing — Mechanical 

Elocution 

Formal spelling 

History of commerce. 



320 

350 

220 

260 

Manual training 1,120 

Music 760 

Mythology 30 

Pedagogy 140 

Physical culture 420 

Eeviews 360 

Stenography and typewriting. . . . 480 
These figures comprehend all the high 
schools in the State of Illinois 



THOUGHTS ABOUT HOME 



The average theory of home life is that 
the happiness of home depends a hnost solely 
upon the wife and mother; tliat woman's 
first and highest mission is hei' home ; that 
there are no clouds that ever orerhang the 
home that sunbeams, bright and joyous, 
cannot penetrate. Love and ii;ason, hope 
and aspiration, blend in a gl jrious, gor- 
geous rainliow of promise thai arches the 
holy circle of home. 

WHAT HOME MEANS. 

Home means much in this twentieth cen- 
tury; it means all that makes life really 
worth the living. It is the object to which 
all unselfish endeavor is directed. It is the 
one solitary spot in the desert of the world 
where all those principles taught us in 
childhood preserve their living green, and 
reach out of the twilight of the past into the 
sun-gold of the future, preserving unbrok- 
enly for generations to come the lessons 
therein taught. 

THE WORD HOME. 

Home is a word that we love to linger on. 
It brings around our hearts a confiding 



trust and repose. It has been said that there 
is no sweeter word in all the dialects of 
earth than the word home, unless it be the 
word "Mother," and home always suggests 
her and clusters about it more happy and 
hallowed associations than any other place. 
Its impressions are the strongest, deepest 
and most ineffaceable. It me ^ns life after 
death, the hereafter, to all who are blessed 
with offspring, in whom their own charac- 
teristics and energies are perpetuated. 

It is the golden chrysalis, wherefrom the 
hope of the future takes wings at last. The 
home life is the nucleus around which all 
life has its growth, and that its tone and 
coloring are transmitted not to one genera- 
tion alone, but to many generations, is an 
indisputable fact. 

MOTHEE. 

Some writer has said that each member of 
the family contributes his or her share 
towards the making of the home, but the 
principal, presiding spirit is the wife and 
mother. She is, or should be, its life, heart 
and center. 



SOLID FOOD FOB SOUND MINDS 



479 



The mother holds the key of the soul, and 
she it is who stamps the coin of character 
for her sons and daughters. Then crown 
her queen of the home. We should make 
our homes as tasteful as possible and 1 )eau- 
tify them with all the adornments which na- 
ture and our purse can provide. We should 
adorn our grounds with those natural at- 
tractions which the Creator has so profusely 
spread around us, and especially should we 
adorn the family circle with noble traits 
and kindly inclinations, fill the atmosphere 
with affection and thus induce others to love 
rather than fear us. 

WHAT MAKES AN IDEAL HOME? 

The ideal home is not made up simply of 
furniture and fixtures and decorations. The 
furnishii.g may be elaborate and luxurious, 
the decorations of the most artistic char- 
acter, the arrangements for comfort perfect 
in every respect. Still, if it lacks the sun- 
shine and warmth of love and affection it 
is not an ideal home ; it is cold and dull and 
without life. It is marvelous, too, if the 
home lacks this element, how soon it will 
be manifest. The absence of it permeates the 
very atmosphere. There are homes, how- 
ever, whose memory is a perpetual joy, and 
to which we always turn with emotions of 
gladness and pleasure. Xeither statuary 
nor paintings may grace niche or wall. 
They are plain and unpretentious, lacking 
everything but the necessaries of life. Yet 
they are filled Avith beauty because of the 
spirit of love and affection abiding therein. 

DUTY OF FATHER AND MOTHER. 

It is the duty of every father and mother 
to make the home attractive. Make the liv- 
ing rooms pleasant, give them the sunniest 
side of the house. The plant that lives in 
the shade is sickly and unsightly. 



One of the indisputable conditions of a 
pleasant home is the preservation of order. 
Have a place for everything and put every- 
thing in its place. "Order is heaven's first 
law." We should cultivate a habit of read- 
ing, if we have it not. We need it as well 
as we need air and sunshine, sleep and food. 
How refreshing it is to be able to lose one's 
self, even for a short time, in places where 
nature reigns. 

BOOKS. 

The humblest country boy or girl, kept 
at home by poverty and having to perform 
menial labor, may, if he will, with the aid 
of booksj use the eyes and ears and brains 
of all men, everywhere and in all ages. 

To-day the whole world of thought is be- 
fore us and at our disposal, in every city 
and village, for a mere pittance. Every 
home should have a library. What bread 
and other articles of food are to the body 
books are to the mind, and, as the mind 
craves knowledge, its wants should be sup- 
plied or provided for with great care. A 
library always affords the choicest com- 
panionship. Some books are inspiring. 
Every page and sentence stirs us to higher 
motives and a higher life. Others inspire 
us with awe and veneration as ■ we read 
them. Others are fragrant; they breathe 
the air of the mountain, the hillside, the 
valley, the home. Those who have a well- 
selected library may dine with kings and 
reason with philosophers, associate with 
poets and painters, and number the master 
thinkers of all ages among their personal 
friends. A home without books is a dreary, 
inhospitable place. A good book is always 
a genial companion. We should select our 
libraries with the greatest care, beginning 
them with the Bible, and making the poets 



480 



SOLID FOOD FOB SOUND MINVS 



our especial friends, adding, each, year, such 
books as may come within our reach. This 
is a sure means of refinement and educa- 
tion. 

MUSIC. 

The home is almost as incomplete at the 
present day without some musical instru- 
ment, as it would be without books. We 
should cultivate a taste for music, both in- 
strumental and vocal. Music is classed 
among the fine arts, and is taught as a 
science which all may learn. Music has a 
refining, inspiring and patriotic influence. 
From the mother's lullaby to Mozart's 
requiem masses, in the masterpieces of 
Haydn and Beethoven, we can mark the in- 
fluence of music. Who has not felt the 
quickening spirit while singing, or listening 
to, the sweet melody of the gospel hymns ? 
Have we not the testimony of thousands 
that martial music thrills the soldier with 



a spirit of bravery on the field of bat- 
tle? 

It has been said that no gTeat musician 
has ever been convicted of a great crime. 
Shakespeare, as also well known, makes me- 
lodious utterance a t6st of civilization. Be- 
sides bespeaking a soft voice for a woman, 
he says: "The man that bath no music in 
himself, nor is moved with a concord of 
sweet sounds is fit for treason, stratagems 
and spoils." 

NATTJHE'S MELODIOtrS SOUNDS. 

We are certainly a music loving people. 
Let us have it, then, in the home. IS^ature 
has done her part generously. She sings to 
us through warbling birds, and whispering 
pines, rearing waves and whistling winds. 
The least we can do is to join in the melody 
of nature, and by so doing, we add one 
more to the many bulwarks which should 
ever protect and surround the home. 



MODERN METHODS OF COMMERCIAL EDUCATION 



Commercial education is considered in 
these days to be a very important feature of 
the equipment of young men for business, 
and the development of the commercial 
training school has been very extensive. ]^ot 
only have business colleges groAvn to a 
stage of high efficiency themselves, but as 
an outgrowth of them commercial courses 
have been introduced into the public and 
high schools, and some universities have es- 
tablished departments of commerce. 
THE PUBLIC BUSINESS-SCHOOL. 

The public business-school has become a 
very close competitor of the private insti- 
tution of the same character, and as a con- 
sequence, the privately conducted institution 



has been forced to avail itself of the most 
improved and scientific methods in every 
particular. 

THE TERM OF STUDY. 

The modem business college of the most 
advanced type instinicts its pupils in book- 
keeping, shorthand, typewriting, business 
methods, commercial law, correspondence, 
and kindred subjects. The time required 
to complete the course is from four to eight 
months|, varying with the adaptability of 
the student. One college announces that 
some of its particularly ambitious students 
have finished the complete course in from 
eight to ten weeks. 

It will thus be observed that the student 



SOLID FOOD FOB SOUND MINDS' 



481 



may advance as he chooses. There are no 
classes in which all do the same work. The 
system of instruction adjusts itself to the 
individual, and every attention is paid to 
the fact that the student is seeking at the 
earliest possible moment to devote himself 
to active business affairs. Each department 
of these schools is highly developed. In 
bookkeeping, for example, the fact is rec- 
ognized that under the high-pressure meth- 
ods of modem business, there is no time 
to train employes in business. The young 
man or woman who wishes to take a posi- 
tion must be ready to perform his or her 
duties at once. Consequently in the book- 
keeping course, each rule and the reason 
for it are carefully explained to the student. 
He is given school currency, notes, drafts, 
invoices, etc., and works on living business 
transactions, instead of spending weeks in 
the dry study of mere text-books. 

Everv^ detail of a modern office is illus- 
trated, and students are given actual prac- 
tice in letter filing, letter-press copying, in- 
dexing and drawing up all kinds of business 
papers. The students are well grounded 
in arithmetic, and taught to be rapid and 
accurate in figure. They are also taught 
to write, not only speedily, but well. They 
take a course in common law, are drilled 
in letter-writing and spelling, obtain a com- 
plete understanding of the latest labor-sav- 
ing methods of accounting, and are trained 
to perform all the details and routine of 
office work. 

SHORTHAND. 

In teaching shorthand the students are 
usually divided into three grades. When 
the principles of shorthand have been mas- 
tered, speed in writing is attained through 
systematic practice under the supervision of 
a skilled and experienced teacher. This 



point, in the best schools, is reached in from 
three to five weeks. The grades are then 
as follows: 1. Where dictation is at the 
rate of from 30 to 90 words a minute. 2. 
Where the rate is from 90 to 110 words 
a minute. 3. AVliere the rate is from 110 
to 125 words a minute. 

A MODEL OFFICE. 

Sonic of the colleges have introduced what 
is called a "^model office," where shorthand 
holds full sway. This office has every ap- 
pliance and convenience of a modem com- 
mercial office. Here are duplicated the ex- 
act conditions that obtain in the offices of 
the largest and most progressive business 
houses. 

AIDS TO PROGHESS IN STUDY. 

Among the facilities for study are the 
newest style of desks, new typewriters, 
with the very latest improvements, the lead- 
ing card-index systems, folio indices, letter 
presse.-J, the mimeograph, the newest style — 
everything the student may be required to 
use later in actual business. All pupils reg- 
ularly devote a considerable period of their 
time to this work, familiarizing themselves 
with the details of office routine, and ob- 
taining a 2)ractical instead of a theoretical 
knowledge of business systems and meth- 
ods. 

THE SCHOOL CORRESPONDENCE. 

The school correspondence, as well as 
that of khe employment department, is con- 
ducted in this office. The instructor, who 
is here the employer, in effect, gives each 
student, in turn, actual dictation. This is 
then transcribed, passed to the instructor 
for examination, and, if necessary, is cor- 
rected. The student then attends to the 
copying, indexing, cross-indexing and 



482 



SOLID FOOD FOB SOUND MINDS 



mailing of the corresjiondence. It is a 
part of the plan of tlie more progressive 
schools to assist all their students to obtain 
positions. To do this effectively, a thor- 
oughly systematized employment depart- 
ment is maintained, which keeps in close 
touch with a large number of business 



firms, from which requests for employes are 
continually received. Banks and trust com- 
panies have regularly on file with these in- 
stitutions applications for the services of the 
particularly bright and capable. The tui- 
tion fees are moderate, and board may be 
obtained at a reasonably low rate. 



SPARKS OF SCIENCE 



ABOUT COLOR. 

Solar light is a compound substance, con- 
sisting of what is termed the seven pris- 
matic colors, namely: red, orange, yellow, 
green, blue, indigo and violet. These when 
properly separated comprise the colors of 
the rainbov/, and when combined in a beam, 
are called white light. 

A BEAM OF SUN WAVES. 

A beam of Avaves from the sun is com- 
posed of a bundle of ethereal waves, and 
these waves are of different lengths. The 
length of a light-wave is the distance from 
its crest to a similar point on the next wave. 
The different lengths of waves produce the 
different colors to our vision. Those pro- 
ductive of red require 39,000, placed end 
to end, to make the length of an inch, and 
those productive of violet require about 
57,500. 

THE COLOB, BED. 

When we contemplate the beauty of the 
color we call red, as we see it in the rain- 
bow, the solar spectrum, in the red leaves of 
a blooming rose or elsewhere in nature or 
in art, let us remember that to produce this 
color, 477,000,000,000,000 of little ethe- 
real waves enter the eye and impinge on the 
retina in every second of time; and in the 
same interval 700,000,000,000,000 of these 



waves enter our eyes, and produce in us the 
sensation we call violet. When 577,000,- 
000,000,000 impinge on the retina they pro- 
duce the sensation of green, and the other 
colors between the red and the viol^^t are 
all produced in the same manner. 
COMPOUNDS OF COLORS. 

A compound of red and green will pro- 
duce white light. Yellow and blue will do 
the same,, and for the same reason, beef use 
they are complementary colors. 
NO SUBSTANCE HAS NATURAL COLOR. 

No substance wliicli we see in nature or 
art has any natural color. What Ave popu- 
larly term the color of an object is pro- 
diiced, and its color determined, solely by 
its power of absorption and reflection, and 
by these qualities alone. 
LEAVES OF A TREE OR BLADES OF 



For this we will instance the leaves on 
a tree, the gTeen grass, the beautiful flowers. 
A full sunbeam, with all its elements of 
color, is showered promiscuously on every- 
thing in nature, and the molecular construc- 
tion of this green leaf, for instance, or of 
the grass, is such that it absorbs all of the 
ethereal waves except those of a given 
length, and these it repels or reflects; the 
reflected waves, twining back and imping- 



SOLID FOOD FOB SOUND MINDS 



48^ 



ing on the retina of the eje, produce in ns 
the sensation of color, and that color is 
green. All the other waves are absorbed 
bj the leaf, and produce heat instead of 
light. 

THE PANSY. 

The beautiful pansy absorbs all the rays 
'd the solar beam except the shortest ones, 
that are capable of making themselves sen- 
sible to our visual organs, and these short 
^vavofe are turned back by reflection, and, 
'Impinging on the retina of the eye, produce 
in us the sensation of violet; and so it is 
through ail the range of colors. To repeat, 
every object in the natural world or the 
world of art leceives the full beam of ethe- 
real waves, 01 its full beam of colors, which 



are all the colors of the spectrum or rain- 
bow. It then selects such of these waves, aa 
owing to their length and the position of 
their planes of vibration, it is unable to ab- 
sorb, retlects them back to the eye, and the 
length of these reflected waves detennines 
the color of the object. 

The coloring matter that makes the pig- 
ment which to us is black, absorbs all of the 
solar beam that falls upon it, and hence no 
color is reflected back to the eye; on the 
other hand the white paper on which we 
w^rite absorbs none of these waves, but re- 
flecting the entire beam back to the eye, 
we have a compound of all of the colors, 
and this compound is white ; hence we call 
the paper white. As before said, color is 
not inherent in anything. 



OCEAN CABLES IN WAR TIME 



TWELVE CABLES XmDER THE ATLANTIC. 



Stretching across the Atlantic bed to-day 
are twelve cables, ten of them being Ameri- 
can and British, two being French, while 
one German cable has just been completed 
from the Azores. These cables are as fol- 
lows: Anglo-American, four cables, from 
the west of Ireland to Newfoundland; 
Commercial, three cables, from the west of 
Ireland to ISTova Scotia, but passing jSTew- 
foundland in shoal water; direct United 
States, one cable, from the west of Ireland 
to Xova Scotia, but passing ISTeAvfoundland 
in shoal water ; one French cable, Pougier 
Quarticr, from Brest to St. Pierre, also 
passing Newfoundland in shoal water; an- 
other French cable, Generale, from Brest to 
Cape Cod ; and a German cable, from Em- 



den, via the i\^ores, to Cape Cod, both pass- 
ing Newfoundland in shoal water. 
THE GERMAN CABLE. 
As the German cable runs partly through 
Portuguese territory, it is regarded as un- 
reliable and practically valueless to Eng- 
land in time of war. There are two cables 
from Lisbon to Brazil via the Cape Verde 
Islands, but their connections are compli- 
cated, and they are deemed iinreliable be- 
cause of the countries in which their termi- 
nals lie. No country at war with England 
would hesitate to strike at her cables, and 
would cut them, as well as those of the 
American companies. If the work were 
to be done by the American Navy, it would 
not hesitate to cut the cables owned in this 



484 



SOLID FOOD FOB SOUND MINDS 



country, so as to completely sever England's 
communications with tlie western hemis- 
phere. 

THE PEENCH CABLE EEOM BREST. 

In the case of France, it is pointed out 
that a wai-ship at soa might pick up the 
Brest cable (the location of which is known 
only to the French officials) and could 
thereby communicate Avith the home office, 
leam if war had been declared, and re- 
ceive precise instructions, repairing the 
French cable before departing to sever the 
enemy's wires. 

BRITISH CABLES LANDING AT CORN- 
WALL AND CONNAUGHT. 

The British ITavy is supposed to be com- 



petent to protect the cables landing at the 
Cornwall and Connaught coasts, while ca- 
ble cutting in deep water is only possible 
to experts on regular slow-going cable ships, 
whose movements would undoubtedly be 
watched by Great Britain. 

CUTTING CABLES IN THE SPANISH- 
AMERICAN WAR. 

Cable experts say that the difficulties met 
with hj the American iSTavy in cutting ca- 
bles during the Spanish-American war 
were the result of inexperience, and that a 
man who knew his business would, on board 
a sea-going tug, have all of the Atlantic 
cables off Cape Canso completely at his 
mercy, and could finish the job in 48 hours. 



POINTS OF LAW 



Law is a rule for action established by a 
government or other competent authority 
to regulate justice and direct duty. Law 
may be between God and man either in 
natural or revealed form ; or it may be be- 
Jween man and man. The latter form is 
iivided into several kinds : national or mu- 
aicfpal, which may embrace constitutional, 
cannon or ecclesiastical laws ; equity or 
common law, which embraces what might 
be called public or criminal laws ; and pri- 
vate or civil laws, besides which there is 
still int6T.x\ational law. 

CIVIL LAW. 

Civil law js the system which the people 
of a State ciuct for their welfare. This 
branch deab pariicularly with all things 
not criminal. In that it is private, it has 
to do with actions between iiidividuals, such 
as indebtedness, actions on notes, mort- 
gages, etc.. the adjustment c\ acquiring of 



titles, collections, marriage and divorce, and 
the like. Branches of the civil law are many, 
such as commercial law, which has to do 
principally with business affairs of commer- 
cial houses; insurance law, for regulating 
insurance companies; maritime law, for 
questions pertaining to affairs of the sea; J| 
military law, for armies; municipal ]aw<, * 
for cities ; sumptuary laws for people deal- 
ing in intoxicating liquors, etc. 
CRIMINAL LAW. 
Criminal law is generally punitive, where 
civil law exacts only a settlement. The 
state steps in to inflict a penalty on a male- 
factor who acts against the good of the pub- 
lic. Criminal carelessness is a crime, 
though accident is not. If a faulty boiler 
explodes, or a badly constructed building 
burns and causes loss of life, some one is 
liable to punishment for it. Yet a man 
may accidentally discharge a firearm and 



SOLID FOOD FOB SOUND MINDS 



485 



kill some one, and. not be held for it. 

Ignorance of the law is no excuse. 

You may not lawfully condone an of- 
fense by receiving back stolen property. 

POLICE ARRESTS. 

Police are not authorized to make arrests 
«\dthout' warrants duly sworn out before a 
magistrate, unless they personally know 
that an act has been committed that calls 
for the arrest. 

PORCIBLE ENTRANCE ON WARRANT. 

When a warrant has been sworn out for 
a man accused of crime, his house may be 
entered forcibly. 

EMBEZZLEMENT. 

Embezzling is Iheft by an officer, agent 
or sen^ant of a corporation. 

FELONY. 

Felon}' is a high crime, the highest of 
the principal classes in which crimes are 
divided by statute. A grave crime exceeds 
in gTade a misdemeanor. 

GRAND AND PETIT LARCENY. 

Grand larceny involves over $25 ; petit 
larceny anything below that amount. 



ARSON. 

Arson is the crime of feloniously setting 
fire to a building. 

DRUNKENNESS NO EXCITSE FOR 
CRIME. 

Drunkenness is no legal excuse for com- 
mitting a crime, but when carried to the 
extent of delirium tremens, it may be ad- 
judged insanity. 

ASSISTANCE COMPULSORY ON POLICE- 
MAN'S APPEAL. 

Officers of the law are empowered to ap- 
peal for assistance, and anj-one to whom 
they may appeal is in law bound to assist. 
FORGERY. 
Forgei'y is the copying or signing the 
name of another with deceitful or fraudu- 
lent intention. 

MURDER. 

Murder in the first degree must have been 
premeditated, malicious and willful. Kill- 
ing in duels is murder. 

PERJURY. 

Willful false swearing is perjury. A 
false statement under oath, which is quali- 
fied as the belief of the affiant, does not 
constitute perjury. Subornation of perjury 
is a felony. 




MONSTER PASSENGER ENGINE OF MODERN TYPE. 




i 



DEPARTURE OF THE SACRED CARPET FROM CAIRO, FOR MECCA. 

Once a year the Khedive sends a beautiful carpet to the tomb of Mohammed, In charge of the Mecca 

pilgrims. It is hung in the tomb until brought back by the next year's pilgrims, when it is 

given to some mosque which it is desired to honor. 



SOLID FOC^ . ^.. tiOUND MINDS 



487 




THE YERKES OBSERVATORY, WILLIAMS BAY. WISCONSIN. 



SAVING THE FORESTS 



A problem of vital importance presents 
itself to the American people in the pres- 
ervation of its forests, For centuries, with 
the onward, march of civilization, has been 
heard the sound of the ax, hewing away 
indiscriminately at the mighty trees of the 
country. While the damage from this on- 
slaught has not been irremediable, nevei-- 
theless, some sections of formerly beautiful 
and valuable country present a sorry sight. 
The lesson has been learned in many 
places that the forest lands must be pro- 
tected. 

Several advantages of forest saving are 
apparent at once. If lumbermen chop 
away at our noble trees without plan or sci- 
entific knowledge, but a few years will pass 
imtil serious results will follow. In the 
first place a constant supply of lumber can- 
not be insured unless means are taken to 
prevent Ihe felling of small trees, which are 
the beginnings of new forests. Without 
this young growth, future generations will 
be without lumber. 

riSTRIBirTION OF MOISTTRE DEPEND- 
ENT ON FORESTS. 

Inhabitants of sections which were for- 
merly well-wooded and now stand stripped 
of their timber, have discovered to their 
sorrow that the irrigation of the soil, even in 
a fertile country, depends greatly upon the 



forests. However much the forests may 
affect the rainfall itself, tliey have a power- 
ful infiue.'ice in the distribution of its mois- 
ture. The regulation of the flow of streams 
is mainly insured by forests. The heavy 
mas.'^es of tangled roots and matted leaves 
of the forest lands collect the moisture, and 
hold it pent up for a long time. 

FORESTS PREVENT FLOODS AND 
DROUTH. 

This prevents great floods during spring 
thaws, and, conversely, prevents seasons of 
drouth by allowing this stored up water 
gTH dually to find its way to the brooks and 
rivers. Thus, streams valuable for water 
power are preserved in their natural vol- 
ume, and economic purposes are subserved. 
Compare the wildly-rushing, muddy- 
stream, rolling in the spring through tim- 
ber-stripped country, and the same stream 
dry, in the season when moisture is most 
needed in its valley for crop maturing, 
Avith that stream whose current is still 
regulated by kindly forests. This com- 
parison has gradually become so effective 
that much good is resulting from it. 

LESSEN THE NECESSITY FOR IRRIGA- 
TION. 

As the tide of improvements moves fur- 
ther westward, the problem of developing 



488 



SOLID FOOD FOR SOUND MINDS 



arid and waste lands is being studied more 
closely. In the great deserts, scientific irri- 
gation is already turning desolation into a 
paradise. Agriculture in the West depends 
more and more upon the forests. In many 
sections moisture depends upon storage res- 
ervoirs. These often give way through the 
breaking of dams. This can be obviated, 
but many others are stopped up with silt. 
This latter evil has only one remedy, tlie 
forest. Even the irrigation ditches receive 
their Avater from streams whose sources are 
in great forest reserves. When it is consid- 
ered that there are in this coimtry nearly 
one hundred million acres of land, not yet 
under cultivation, Avhich may be reclaimed 
by irrigation, and that this land will sup- 
port f'Aventy million souls, the possible bene- 
fit from the j)reservation of forests may be 
imagined. 

NATIONAL rOREST RESERVES. 

The United States Government has taken 
A hand in this great work, congress having 
passed an act March 3, 1891, establishing 
national forest reserves. From President 
Harrison down, each successive executive 
has designated many acres of forest land 
to be set aside. In some instances in the 
West> these reserves constitute the greater 
part of the whole territory of the State. In 
the whole United States there still remain 
nearly 1,000,000 square miles of timber 
land. Under the careful direction of the 
General Land Ofiice, the United States Geo- 
logical Survey and the Division of Forestry 
of the United States Department of Agri- 
culture, much may be done with this tim- 
ber. 

There has-been something of a hue and 
cry, due largely to selfish interests, against 
the establishing of the reservations. On 



some of the great public lands, sheep-graz- 
ing is an important and valuable industry. 
These sheep often stray through the forests 
in huge droves, trampling down the young 
tree growth and hardening the soil. Kuin 
to the woodland often folloAvs, and that in 
itself would prevent further grazing. But 
the sheep herders overlooked this feature 
and fought against the reserves, fearing the 
exclusion of their sheep. When the true 
value of preserving the timber land was 
understood, and it became known that 
sheep could be grazed in small herds, the 
movement progressed rapidly. 

DESTRUCTION OF FORESTS BY FIRE. 

Fire alone, it is estimated, causes a loss 
of $50,000,000 a year to forests. In thick- 
ly timbered country this is little thought 
of, for what is plentiful is regarded 
cheaply. But the tremendous economical 
importance of this great national resource is 
being brought home to the many. In such 
States as are made up of treeless plains, 
timber must be had for building, else tlije 
onward march of civilization will cease. 

THE RAINFALL AND DISTRIBTTTION OF 
FORESTS. 

The distribution of forests in general cor- 
responds with that o(f rainfalls. The Pa- 
cific coast has perhaps the finest and heavi- 
est timber in the world. It is not the oldest 
States that have the smallest forests. Those 
that border on the Atlantic coast, with the 
exception of one, have a wooded area of 
more than 36 per cent of their entire terri- 
tory. Louisiana has 62 per cent; Alabama, 
74 per cent, and Texas, 24 per cent ; about 
two-thirds of the surface of the Gulf States 
(except Texas) is covered with timber. 



SOLID FOOD FOR SOUND MINDS 



489 



THE WEATHER BUREAU AND ITS WORK 



Before the invention of the electric tele- 
graph for the prompt communication neces- 
sary between various parts of the world, 
and the numerous special instruments de- 
vised by scientists for recording atmos- 
pheric conditions, people depended upon the 
opinions of keen local observers, whose ex- 
perience had taught them the significance 
of various visible signs. All sorts of tradi- 
tions and predictions that had come down 
from the past were heeded. The origin of 
scientific weather study is of comparatively 
recent date. Even now 
the value of it is not 
fully understood. The 
well-founded doubts 
and jests based upon 
the superseded method 
of predictions still re- 
main. People do not 
realize the completeness 
of the organization of 
the Weather Bureau 
and the real scientific accuracy of its work. 
A single error in a forecast becomes more 
conspicuous than a score of accurate pre- 
dictions, and the result is that the weather 
man is still not fully appreciated. 

The Weather Bureau of the United 
States Department of Agriculture publishes 
daily more than 100,000 weather bulletins, 
not counting the forecasts in the news- 
papers. Most of these bulletins are in the 
form of postal-cards, printed by postmasters 
from telegraphic reports, and sent by them 
to outlying towns for display at suitable 
points. There is also an elaborate system 
of redistribution, by means of telephones 
and railroads from established centers, so 



that there are comparatively few accessible 
places which do not now receive daily 
weather forecasts, even a very short time 
after the observers have completed their 
work. Tlie old system of conveying in- 
formation about the weather, by means of 
flag displays, is also in general use. 

It is a wonderful picture of atmospheric 
conditions that is presented twice daily to 
the trained eye of the weather forecaster. 
It embraces an area extending from the At- 
lantic to the Pacific, from the north coast 




MEDICINE 
From the great plains of 



HAT, ON THE SASKATCHEWAN RIVER, 
the Canadian northwest come the blizzards of mid-winter. 

of South America northward to the utter- 
most confines of Canadian habitation. 
America's cold waves, hot waves- and storms 
are shown wherever present in this broad 
area. Their development since last re- 
ported is noted, and from the knowledge 
thus gained their future course and in- 
tensity is quite successfully forecast. 
Every twelve hours the kaleidoscope 
changes, and a new graphic picture of 
weather conditions is shown. !N"owhere 
else in the world can meteorologists find 
such an opportunity to study storms and 
atmospheric changes. 

In our Atlantic and Gulf ports there are 
floating over $30,000,000 worth of craft on 




INSTRUMENTS AND EQUIPMENT OF A WEATHER BUREAU STATION. 
Barometer; 2. Barograph; 3. Signal tower showing flags, anemometer, anemoscope and time ball; 
4. Telethermograph ; 5. Anemometer; «. Triple register; 7. Hygrometer. 



SOLID FOOD FOR SOIXD MINDS 



49\ 



any day of the year. And at every port, 
whether on the Atlantic, on the Pacific or 
on the Lakes, there is either a full meteor- 
ological observatory or a storm-warning dis- 
play man, Avho attends to the lighting of 
the danger lights at night, to the display of 
the danger flags by day, and to the distribu- 
tion of storm-warning messages among ves- 



protected with gi*eater certainty through 
these warnings than that of any other part 
of the American coast for the reason that 
practically all of the storms, except those 
from the Gulf, which reach the Atlantic 
coast, originate in the Mississippi Valley. 
The meteorological data of the Mississippi 
Valley storms, covering the entire period of 





-^ 


r'^ 


VH^^HT ^^^^^^^Hlfl 


K? 

^ 




•-'PrHfeHr r ^ 


1^.^-— 5-.- m 







FORECASTING ROOM, CHICAGO STATION OP THE WEATHER BUREAU. 



sel masters. While the daily predictions of 
rain or snow by which the public measures 
the value of the weather service are subject 
to a considerable element of error, namely, 
about one failure in five predictions, the 
marine warnings of the service have been so 
well made that in over six years no pro- 
tracted storm has reached any point of the 
United States without warning being dis- 
played well in advance. As a result of 
these warnings the loss of life and property 
has been reduced to a minimum. 

The shipping of the Atlantic seaboard is 



the service of the Weather Bureau, shows 
that these storms reach the Atlantic coast 
in about twenty-four hours from the begin- 
ning of the eastward movement. It is only 
necessary, therefore, for the weather ob- 
servers to note the origin of the Mississippi 
Valley storm and the beginning of its east- 
ward movement, in order to predict accu- 
rately the time of its arrival on the Atlantic 
coast and give warning to shipping. 

It is a notable example of the utility of 
the American weaiher service, extended 
into the West Indies, that the great Gal- 



492 



SOLID FOOD FOR SOL'ND MINDS 



veston hurricane of 1900 was detected on 
September 1 at the thne of its inception in 
the ocean south of Porto Rico, and that the 
reports were so complete that at no time did 
the observers lose track of the storm. Such 
full information was given as it progressed 
northward, that notwithstanding the exten- 
sive commerce of the Gulf of Mexico, little 
or no loss of life or property occurred upon 
the open waters of the Gulf. The destruc- 
tion of life at Galveston was much less than 
it would have been without the warning 
that had been given. 

When a marked cold wave develops, 
warnings are given so far in advance that 
farmers and shippers are able to save prop- 
erty of enormous value by protecting it 
from frosts. There is one instance recorded 
in the Weather Bureau showing from defi- 
nite information that more than $3,400,000 
worth of property was saved by the advance 
warning in reference to a single cold wave. 
The fruit interests of California derive 
great benefit from rain warnings. On ac- 
count of the peculiar topography of that 
region, these warnings are made with a high 
degree of accuracy, but a few hours before 
the coming of the rain, yet far enough in 
advance to enable the ovmers of vineyards, 
most of which are connected by telephone, 
to gather and stack their trays and thus 
save the drying raisins from destruction. 
In the cranberry marshes of Wisconsin the 
flood gates are regulated by the frost warn- 
ings of the Bureau, and where formerly a 
profitable crop was secured only once in sev- 
eral years, it is now the rare exception that 
damage occurs. Growers of sugar-cane in 
Louisiana, the truck gardeners from Vir- 
ginia to the Gulf, and the orange grower^ 
of Florida, time their operations by the 
frost warnings of the Bureau. From the 



estimates of these industries it is believed 
that the amount annually saved to them is 
far greater than that expended for the sup- 
port of the entire department. 

The flood warning service in operation 
along large rivers is another valuable fea- 
ture. It is now possible to foretell three to 
five days in advance the height of the river 
at a given point within a few inches. The 
danger line at every city has been accu- 
rately determined, so that when a flood is 
likely to exceed this limit, residents of low 
districts and merchants having goods stored 
in cellars are notified to move their prop- 
erty out of reach of the rising waters. An 
illustration of the efl&ciency of this system 
Avas shown during the great floods of 1897. 
Throughout nearly the whole area that was 
submerged, the warning bulletins preceded 
the flow by several days, and the statisti- 
cians of the government estimate that 
$15,000,000 worth of live stock and mov- 
able property was removed to high ground 
as the result of the f orewarnings. Measure- 
ments of snowfall in high mountain ranges 
of the west have given the Bureau informa- 
tion by which very accurate estimates may 
be made as to the supplies of water from 
this source, to be expected during the grow- 
ing season. In this way the weather service 
has been brought into close contact with 
those interested in irrigation, and has be- 
come a valuable aid to them. 

The instruments used in a fully- 
equipped signal station of the Weather 
Bureau are most ingenious and perfect in 
their applications. The ordinary ther- 
mometer and barometer, with which most 
people are familiar, are but rudimentary 
in the processes of forecasting the weather. 
^Nevertheless they are prime requisites. 
The barometer registers the changing pres' 



1 



SOLID FOOD FOB SOFXD MIXDS 



493 



sure of the atmosphere. The barograph is 
au improved barometer, which keeps per- 
j)etual record, automatically, of the atmos- 
pheric pressure. The telethermometer 
combines the functions of the thermometer 
and the telegraph. It registers automatic- 
ally, inside the signal office, what the 
temperature is outside, communicating 
from the thermometer without by an electric 
current over a wire. The anemometer 
registers the velocity of the wind. It is a 
perfectly balanced windmill on a small 
scale, connected with a dial. The anemo- 
scope is better known in familiar language 
as a weather vane, for it merely points the 
exact direction of the wind. The hygrom- 
eter measures the humidity of the atmos- 
phere, and thus helps to forecast rains. 
Then there is a triple register of great 
value, which records the conditions as to 
wind, rain and simshine. All such instria- 
ments are gradually being brought to a 
higher degree of perfection, as increased 
attention is being given to meteorology. 

It was about one hundred years after the 
invention of the barometer, namely in 
174:7, that Benjamin Franklin divined that 
certain storms had a rotary motion, and 
that they progressed in a northeasterly 
direction. A hundred years later other 
scientists gathered data and completeh' es- 
tablished the truth of that which Franklin 
had dimly outlined. So it was that Amer- 
icans were the pioneers in discovering the 
rotary and progressive character of storms, 
and in demonstrating the practicability of 
weather service. This country has always 
kept in the lead among practical meteor- 
ologists, largely because of its area, which 
renders it possible to construct such a broad 
picture of air conditions as is necessary in 
the making of the most useful forecasts. 



It would require an international service 
in Europe to equal ours in the extent of 
area covered, and in practical value. Aus- 
tralia, with an area equal to that of the 
United States, and well-defined conditions, 
has followed our example with a highly 
organized, effective service. 

In 1870 CongTess established the Weather 
Bureau under the "War Department, and it 
was administered under the direction of the 
military branch of the government for some 
eighteen years, until it was transferred to 
the Department of Agriculture. Under the 
new regime its value has multiplied many 
times and the expenditure of the $1,000,- 
000 annually which the service requires has 
become of slight consequence in comparison 
with the immense benefits it produces. 




MAX MAKIXG ASCEXSION BY KITES. 



494 



SOLID FOOD FOR SOUND MINDS 



HOW THE MODERN THEATER IS CONDUCTED 



Something of the glamour of romance 
and mystery veils the world behind the foot- 
lights to those who have never lived within 
that mystic circle, but the life is anything 
but romantic and mysterious to the players 
and the workers. 

THE THEATER WORKHOUSE. 

On the contrary, while to the public a 
theater is a playhouse, it is, to those con- 



less plan's, and selects the one he thinks will 
most please the public. 

THE MANAGER'S SELECTION OF A PLAY. 

These manuscripts are obtained either 
from the playwright direct, or from the 
playwright's agent. Accompanying each 
manuscript is a statement of the royalty to 
be paid for the plays used. This right of 
royalty sometimes costs the manager a? 




WHERE COSTUMES ARE MADE. 



nected with it, something of a workhouse. 
Either a mental or physical effort is re- 
quired almost every minute of one's work- 
ing hours. The ceaseless routine of duties 
necessary to the completion of each produc- 
tJon commences at the desk of the man- 
ager, who reads the manuscripts of count- 



much as $1,000 a week. There are plays 
that cost even more than that ; but the aver- 
age cost is abcut $500 per week. 
THE STAGE DIRECTOR'S PREPARATIOITS. 
After the manager has selected a play to 
follow any given production, the manu- 
scripts go immediately to the stage director. 



SOLID FOOD FOR SOUND MINDS 



495 



who 1& the power behind the throne (foot- 
lights), and the autocrat of the world on 
«ind beneath the stage. It is his province to 
direct, and his duty to apportion, the 
various tasks involved in the mechanical 
construction and the mental preparation of 
a play. 

After having read tte manuscript the 



THE SCENIC ARTIST, PROPERTY MAN, 
ELECTRICIAN AND STAGE CAR- 
PENTER. 

This finished, he turns over the scene plot 
to the scenic artist, who immediately 
wrinkles his brows for an imaginative con- 
ception of an original interior or a fresh 
The stage director assigns the 




toy courtesy or Geo. R. Lawrence, CBIcago. 
VIEW SHOWING PROSCENIUM ANT) BOX ARRANGEMEXT OF A MODERN THEATER. 
Illinois Theater, Chicago. 



stage director begins "to plot," not like the 
villain in the play, but with pencil and 
paper. Using those business materials, he 
draws the scene plot, and several other 
minor plots, varying in number and im- 
portance according to the extent of the pro- 
duction. 



property plot to the property man, who be- 
gins to get the hundred and one articles 
that are to be a part of the coming produc- 
tion. The light plot goes to the electrician, 
who at once begins planning the light 
effects for this particular play. Still an- 
other olot goes to the stage carpenter, who 



496 



SOLID FOOD FOB SOI^XD MINDS 



at once sets about -w 
nails to make such fi 



THE ORCHESTRA LEADER. 



The "plotting" does n( 
leader of the orchestra, ' 
select the proper* charac- 
ter of music for each 
situation — something- 
tremulous, for the tears, 
something lively, for 
laughter, and something 
heroic for the melodra- 
matic, is given a "plot." 

ASSIGNMENT OF 
PARTS. 

These plots having 
been formed and dis- 
tributed, the stage man- 
ager then proceeds to 
cast the play — ^that is, 
lie mentally canvasses 
the individual talents 
of the members of the 
company and assigns to 
each one the part most 
suited to that j)erson. 
Sometimes a player pos- 
sesses sufficient versa- 
tility to fill any role, 
but such versatility is 
rare. Good judgment 
in assigning the parts 
is therefore an indis- 
pensable attribute of a 
good stage manager. 
ISTot every player, to be 
sure, is invariably as- 
signed to the part he 
would most like to play, 



, hammer and but the part he would most like to play is 
are necessary. not always the pai't he could play best. As 
to that, the stage director is the judge, and 
upon the correctness of his judgment fre- 
t cud here, for, the quently depends the success of the produc- 
vliose duty it is to tioa. 




By courtesy of the Columbia Theater, Chicaeo. 
WHERE SCENERY IS PAINTED. 



SOLID FOOD FOB SOUXD MIXDS 



497 



TIP IN THE "FLIES." 

While the property man goes abo\it the 
getting together of the "props" the scenic 
artists high up in the flies are busily work- 
ing upon the scenery for the coming pro- 
duction. The paints are "cooked" and the 
colors blended upon such canvases as are 



are the methods of the modern stage that a 
locomotive may be made to appear as if 
going through flames at a terrific rate of 
speed, Avhile in fact it is absolutely station- 
ary. Flame is often made with cloth and 
colored lights. Steam is made to take the 
place of smoke. The ear, too, is deoeived. 




By courtesy of the Columbia Theater, Chicago. 
MODEL FOR STAGE SCENE. 



to be used. For each production there is 
an entirely new outfit, giving a freshness of 
scenic investiture to each play that is prac- 
tically impossible with traveling organiza- 
tions. 

MODERN FEATURES IN STAGE PRODUC- 
TION. 

In producing plays at the present time 
nothing is impossible. Lightning is made 
to go zig-zag across the stage at the will of 
the electrician, miniature lakes and foun- 
tains are the work of the stage carpenter 
and manager, and, in fact, so far advanced 



as well as the eye, and thus the most realis- 
tic effects are achieved. 

All this varied and elaborate procedure 
involves a large expenditure, which finds 
its return, with a very handsome margin of 
profit, in the patronage received from the 
theater loving public. The popular ten- 
dency to crowd before the footlights never 
seems to diminish, and if the plays are of 
the proper character, the amusement and 
edification obtained from witnessing his- 
trionic productions constitute a wholesome 
diversion. 



498 



SOLID FOOD FOE SOLXD MINDS 



GATHERING CORK 



The cerk tree belongs to the class of oaks, 
and grows in the impenetrable forests of 
Spain, in the southwestern portion of 
I'jrance, in Algiers and in Senegambia. 
There are two trees, quercus stiber and 
quercus occidentalis, that, from time to 
time, shed their bark or outer coating. This 
coating covers the cork of trade; but the 
bark shed by nature is not marketable, be- 
cause it does not contain any sap, which is 
necessary to retain the elasticity. 
PEELING EOR INDUSTRIAL PURPOSES. 

Cork for industrial purposes is gained by 
peeling. After a tree is three years old, the 
peeling may commence; but cork of that 
age is of inferior quality, and the peeling 
would kill the tree. Trees of twenty years' 
groAvth give cork of a fair quality, improv- 
ing until the tree has gained the respectable 
age of 100 or 150 years, when the bark 
becomes hard and unwieldy. Circular in- 
cisions are made around the trunk of the 
tree, which are connected hj perpendicular 
cuts, allowing the two half circles to be re- 
moved. Care must be taken not to disturb 
the fiber, or inner bark, which keeps the 
tree alive. 

PRESSING INTO PLATES. 

The peeling process can be repeated on 
tlie same tree at intervals of from eight to 
ten years, yielding cork plates from one to 
four inches in thickness. The half round 
cork pieces are pressed into plates while 
still moist from the tree. Then the rough 
coatings are removed, and the plates are 
immersed in boiling water for several min- 
utes and pressed again. After that ^hey 



are piled in bundles, fastened bj iron 
hoops, and are ready for the market. The 
raw material Avill sell from four to 70 cents 
'pev pound, according to the quality and 
thickness. The full-grown cork tree 
reaches a height of 70 feet, and a diameter 
of five feet. The quality of the cork de- 
pends very much upon the lay of the land, 
— that exposed to the greatest heat being 
the finest. Each tree yields cork of two 
dimensions, — the bark on the northern side 
of the tree being the thinnest. 

The imported tree is said to thrive in 
some portions of the United States, but the 
region of the Pyrenees supplies most of the 
world's demand for the cork of commerce. 

The tree blossoms in April or May; the 
fruit ripens from September to January, 
falling on the ground as soon as ripe. The 
acorns are edible, and resemble chestnuts 
in taste. 

Cork intended for the market is gener- 
ally stripped off a year or two before it 
would naturally come away. The cork of 
the first barking, which is removed usually 
Avhen the tree is about twenty-five years 
old, is known as the virgin bark. The tak- 
ing of this bark rather promotes the health 
of the tree. The average yield of commer- 
cial cork is about 45 pounds to one tree. 

USES OF CORK. 

Aside from stopping bottles and casks, 
cork is used for floats of nets, swimming 
belts, etc., and for inner soles of shoes. 
The waste bits are made into linoleum. The 
Spanish black used by painters is made by 
burning cork in close vessels. 




THE PHOTOPHONE— THE LATEST SCIENTIFIC MIRACLE. 
Telephoning on a Ray ot Light Without WirA= 



500 



SOLID FOOD FOR SOUND MINDS 



POPULATION OF AMERICAN CITIES OF MORE THAN 100.000. 

(1910 Census.) 



City. 
New York, N. Y 


1910. 
4,766,883 






Philadelphia, Pa 

St. Louis, Mo 


1,549,008 

687,029 

670 585 


Cleveland Ohio 


560 663 


Baltimore, Md 


558,485 

533 905 


Detroit Mich 


465 766 


Buffalo, N. y 


423,715 


Milwaukee Wis 


373 857 






Newark, N. J 

New Orleans, La 

Washington, D. C 

Los Angeles. Cal 


347,469 

339,075 

331,069 

319,198 



City. 1910. 

Minneapolis, Minn 301.408 

Jersey City, N. J 267,779 

Kansas City, Mo 248,331 

Seattle, Wash 237,194 

Indianapolis, Ind 233,650 

Providence, R. 1 224,326 

Louisville, Ky 223,928 

Rochester, N. Y 218,149 

St. Paul, Jlinn 214,744 

Denver, Colo 213,581 



Portland, Or 



,214 



Oakland, Cal 150,174 

Worcester, Mass 145,986 

Syracuse, N. Y 137,249 



City. 1910. 

New Haven, Conn 133,605 

Birmingham, Ala 132,683 

Memphis, Tenn 131,105 

Scranton, Pa 129,867 

Richmond, Va 127,628 

Paterson, N. J 125,600 

Omaha, Neb 124,096 

Fall River, Mass 119,295 

Dayton, Ohio 116,577 

Grand Rapids, Mich 112,571 

Nashville, Tenn 110.364 

Lowell, Mass 106,294 

Cambridge, Mass 104,839 

Spokane, Wash 104,402 

Bridgeport, Conn 102,054 

Albany, N. Y 100,253 



POPULATION OF AMERICAN CITIES OF LESS THAN 100,000. 

(1910 Census.) 



City. 1910. 

Akron, Ohio 69,067 

Alameda, Cal 23,383 

Alexandria. Va 15,329 

Allentown, Pa. 51,913 

Alton, 111 17,528 

Altoona, Pa 52,127 

Amsterdam, N. Y 31,267 

Ann Arbor, Mich 14,817 

Ansonia, Conn 15.152 

Ardmore, Okla 8,618 

Arge^ta, Ark 11,138 

Arlington, Mass. 11,187 

Atlantic City, N. J 46,150 

Auburn, N. Y 34,668 

Augusta, Ga 41,040 

Aurora, III 29,807 

Austin, Texas 29.860 

Barre, Vt 10,734 

Battle Creek, Mich 25,267 

Bay City, Mich 45,267 

Bayoniic, N. J 55,545 

Belleville, 111 21,122 

Beloit, Wis 15.125 

Berkeley, Cal 40,434 

Binghamton, N. Y 48,443 

Bloomfleld, N. J 15,070 

Bloomington, 111 25,768 

Boise, Idaho 17,358 

Boone, Iowa 10,347 

Braddock, Pa 19.357 

Brockton, Mass 56.878 

Brookline, Mass 27,792 

Brownsville. Texas 10,517 

Burlington, Vt 20,468 

Butte, Mont 39,165 

Cambridge, Ohio 11,327 

Camden, N. J 94,538 

Canton, 111 10,453 

Canton, Ohio 50.217 

Carnegie, Pa 10.009 

Carson City, Nev 2,466 

Cedar Rapids, Iowa 32,811 

Central Falls, R. 1 22,754 

Charlotte, N. C 34,014 

Chattanooga, Tenn 44,604 

Chelsea, Mass 32,452 

Chester, Pa 38.537 

Chickasha, Okla 10,320 

Chicopee, Mass 25,401 

Clinton, Iowa 25.577 

Cohoes. N. Y 24,709 

Colorado Springs, Colo 29,078 

Corning, N. Y 13,730 

Cortland, N. Y 11,504 

Council Bluffs. Iowa 29.292 

Covington, Ky. 53,270 



City. 

Cranston, R. I 

Cumberland, Md 

Cumberland, R. I 

Dallas, Texas 


1910. 

21,171 

21,839 

10,107 

92,104 


Danville Ga 


19 020 










Decatur, 111 


31,140 

86 368 










Dunkirk, N. Y 


17,221 








'8 523 


East Orange, N. J 


34,371 


Elgin III 


''5 976 


Elizabeth, N. J 


73,409 


El Paso, Texas 


39.279 


















Flint Mich 


38 550 


Fort Dodge, Iowa 


15,543 


Fort Worth, Texas 


73,312 


Fulton, N. Y 

Gadsden Ala 


10,480 

10 557 


Galveston, Texas 

Geneva, N. Y 

Glens Falls, N. Y 

Gloversville, N. Y 

Great Falls Mont 


36.981 

12,446 

15,243 

20,642 

13 948 


Green Bay, Wis 

Hamilton, Ohio 

Harrisbuig, Pa 


25,236 

35,279 






Hazelton, Pa 

Hoboken, N. J 


25,452 

70,324 




18 713 






Hornell, N. Y 

Houston, Texas 

Hudson N T.... 


13,617 

78,800 

. .11 417 


Huntington, W. Ya 


31,161 


Ithaca N Y 


14 802 


Jackson, Mich 


31,433 



City. 1910. 

Jacksonville, Fla 57,699 

Jamestown, N. Y 31,297 

Janesville, Wis 13,894 

Johnstown, N. Y 10,447 

Johnstown, Pa 55,482 

Joliet, 111 34,670 

Joplin, Mo 32,073 

Kalamazoo, Mich 39,437 

Kansas City, Kas 82,331 

Kingston, N. Y 25,908 

Knoxville, Tenn 36,346 

Lackawanna, N. Y 14,549 

Lacrosse, Wis 30,417 

Lancaster, Pa 47,227 

Lansing, Mich 31,229 

Laredo, Texas 14,855 

Lawrence, Mass 85,892 

Lewiston, Maine 26,247 

Lexington, Ky 35,099 

Lima, Ohio 30,508 

Lincoln, Neb 43,973 

Little Falls, N. Y 12,273 

Little Rock, Ark 45,941 

Lockport, N. Y 17,970 

Lorain, Ohio 28,883 

Lynchburg, Va 29,494 

Lynn, Mass 89,336 

Macon, Ga 40.665 

Madison, Wis. 25,531 

Maiden, Mass 44,404 

Manchester, N. H 70,063 

Medford, Mass 23,150 

Melrose, Mass 15,715 

Meriden, Conn 27,265 

Middletown, Conn 11,851 

Middletown, N. Y 15,313 

Middletown, Ohio 13,152 

Moline, HI 24.199 

Mobile, Ala 51,521 

Montgomery, Ala. 38,136 

Mount Vernon, N. Y 30,919 

Muskogee, Okla 25,278 

McAlester, Okla 12,954 

McKeesport, Pa 42,694 

McKees Rocks, Pa 14,702 

Nashua, N. H 26,005 

Newark, Ohio 25,404 

New Bedford, Mass 96,652 

New Britain, Conn 43,916 

New Brunswick, N. J 23,388 

Newburgh, N. Y 27,805 

Newcastle, Pa 36,280 

New London, Conn 19,659 

Newport, Ky 30,309 

Newport News, Va 20,205 

Newport, R. 1 27,149 



SOLID FOOD FOR SOUND MINDS 



501 



City. 1910. 

New Rochelle. N. T 2S,S67 

Newton, Mass 39,806 

Niagara Falls, N. Y 30,445 

Norfolk, Va 67.452 

Norristown, Pa 27,875 

North Braddock, Pa 11,824 

N. Tonawanda, N. Y 11,955 

North Yakima, Wash 14,032 

Norwich, Conn 20,367 

Oak Park, 111 19,444 

Ogdensburg, N. Y 15,933 

Ogden, Utah 25,5S0 

Oklahoma City, Okla 64,205 

Olean, N. Y 14,743 

Orange, N. J 29,630 

Oshkosh, Wis 33,062 

Oswego, N. Y 23.368 

Oyster Bay, N. Y 21,802 

Pasadena, Cal 30,291 

Passaic, X. J 54,773 

Pawtucket, R. 1 51,622 

Pensacola, Fla 22.982 

Peoria, 111 66,950 

Perth Amboy, N. J 32,121 

Petersburg, Va 24,127 

Pittsfield, Mass 32,121 

Plattsburg, N. Y 11,138 

Portland. Maine 58,571 

Portsmouth, Va 33,190 

Poughkeepsie, N. Y 27,936 

Pueblo, Colo 44,395 

Quincy, 111 36,587 

Quincy, Mass 32,642 

Racine, Wis 38.002 

Reading, Pa 96.071 

Rensselaer, N. Y 10,711 



City. 1910. 

Revere, Mass 18,219 

Roanoke, Va 34,874 

Rockford, 111 45,401 

Rock Island, 111 24,334 

Rome, Ga 12,099 

Rome, N. Y 20,497 

Rutland, Vt 13,546 

Sacramento. Cal 44,696 

Saginaw, Mich 50,510 

St. Joseph. Mo 77,403 

Salem, Mass 43,697 

Salt Lake City, Utah 92,777 

San Angelo, Texas 10,321 

San Antonio. Texas 96,614 

San Diego, Cal 39,578 

San Jose, Cal 28.946 

Sault Ste. Marie, Jlich 12,615 

Savannah, Ga 65,064 

Schenectady, N. Y 72,826 

Shawnee, Okla 12,474 

Sheboygan, Wis 26,398 

Shenandoah, Pa 25,774 

Shreveport, I-a 28,015 

Sioux City, Iowa 47,828 

Somerville. JIass 77.236 

South Bend, Ind 53,684 

South Omaha, Xeb 26,259 

Springfield, 111 51,678 

Springfield. Mass 88,926 

Springfield, Mo 35,201 

Springfield, Ohio 46,921 

Stamford, Conn 25,138 

Staunton, Va 10,604 

Supe.lor, Wis 40,384 

Tacoma, Wash 82,972 



City. 1910. 

Tampa, Fla 38,524 

Taunton, Mass 34,259 

Temple, Texas 10.993 

Terre Haute, Ind 58,157 

Topeka, Kas 43,684 

Trenton, N. J 96,815 

Troy, N. Y 76,813 

Tulsa, Okla 18.182 

Utica, N. y 74,419 

Waco, Texas 26,425 

Wakefield, Mass 11,401 

Waltham, Mass 27,834 

Warwick, R. 1 26,629 

Waterbury. Conn 73,141 

Waterloo, Iowa 26,693 

Watertown, Mass 12,875 

M^atertown, N. Y' 26,730 

Watervliet, N. Y 15,074 

West Hoboken, N. J 35,403 

Weymouth, Mass 12,895 

Wheeling, W. Va 41,641 

Wichita. Kas 52,450 

Wilkes-Barre, Pa 67,105 

Wilkinsburg, Pa. 18,924 

Williamsport, Pa 31,860 

Willimantic, Conn 11,230 

Wilmington, Del 87,411 

Wilmington, N. C 25.748 

Winthrop, Mass 10,132 

Woburn, Mass 15,308 

Woonsoeket, R. 1 38,125 

Yonkers, N. Y 79,803 

York, Pa 44,708 

Youngstown, Ohio 79,066 

Zanesville, Ohio 28,026 




From Popular Electricity. 

ELECTRIC LIGHT FOR USE OF DIVERS. 



502 



SOLID FOOD FOR SOUND MINDS 



BIG AMERICAN CROPS IN 1910. 

Though the aggregate yield of all 
in 1910 was 5,160,426,000 bushels, the larg- 
est ever known, the aggregate value of all 
crops in the table is only $3,735,46-1,000, or 
6.3 per cent less than the aggregate value 
in 1909, which was $3,971,426,000, owing to 
an average of 8.5 per cent lower prices. 
The 1910 yield in bushels was greater than 
the 1909 yield by 440,985,000 bushels, or 
9.2 per cent, and 320,000,000 bushels, or 6.6 



Crop— Year. 

Corn 1910 

Winter wheat 1910 

Spring wheat 1910 

All wheat 1910 

Oats 1910 

Barley 1910 

Rye 1910 

Buckwheat 1910 

Flaxseed 1910 

Rice 1910 

Potatoes 1910 

Hay 1910 

Tobacco 1910 

a-Tons. b-Per ton. c-Pounds. d-Per Pound. 



per cent, in excess of the previous record- 
breaking yield of 1906. The corn and oat 
crops were the largest ever raised, and the 
wheat crop has been exceeded only twice. 

Final estimates of the crop reporting 
board of the bureau of statistics, United 
States Department of Agriculture, indicate 
the harvested acreage, production and value 
of important farm crops of the United 
States in 1910 to have been as follows : 





Bushels, 


— Farm 


value Dec. 1 — 


Acreage. 


production. 


per bu. 


Total. 


14,002,000 


3,125,713,000 


48.8 


$1,523,968,000 


29,427,000 


464,044,000 


89.1 


413,575,000 


19,778,000 


231,399,000 


89.8 


207,868,000 


49,205,000 


695,443,000 


89.4 


621,443,000 


35,288,000 


1,126,765,000 


34.1 


384,716,000 


7,257,000 


162,227,000 


57.8 


93,785,000 


2,028,000 


33,039,000 


72.2 


23,840,000 


826,000 


17,239,000 


65.7 


11,321,000 


2,916,000 


14,116,000 


230.6 


32,554,000 


722,800 


24,510,000 


67.8 


16,624,000 


3,.591,000 


3.HS,S1 1,000 


55.5 


187,985,000 


45,691,000 


a60,978,000 


b912.26 


747,769,000 


1,233,800 


c984,349,000 


d9.3 


91,459,000 




QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 



The following is an easy method of "posting up" on the subjects treated in this vol- 
ume. The}' are intended to impress upon the mind the information given. The list covers 
the World of Work and includes all things which are wont to attract the attention and 
store the minds of readers and thinkers. 

In daily intercourse, both business and social all persons are at times confronted by 
problems requiring quick solution. To aid in readily solving them these questions are 
formulated and the answers indicated. They will be found to meet the constantly re- 
curring needs of men and women in every vocation, serving as a medium of ready 
reference to the Mechanic, Farmer, Artist, Railroader, Clerk, housekeeper, professional 
and business man, as well as the Sportsman, Speculator, Inventor, Teacher and Stu- 
dent, and all seekers after useful knowledge. 

The asking and answering of these questions will prove a welcome benefit and 
unique entertainment around the fireside, or at social gatherings or any place where 
pleasure and advancement are appreciated 



Questions and Answers 



Answer 
Question. Page. 

When was the first successful Aeroplane 

Flight 23 

How is an Aeroplane Constructed 27 

What is the Principle of the Flying 

Machine 27 

What is the highest altitude reached by 

Aviators 30 

What is the fastest time made in Air- 
ship 30 

What is the longest flight in Airship . . 30 
How large was the Airship Zeppelin III 33 
How many deaths have resulted from 

Accidents in Airships 35 

What is the largest sum of money made 

in one year by an Aviator 35 

Who made Wireless Telegraphy prac- 
ticable 37 

How far can a Wireless Message be sent 45 
What are the advantages of the Auto- 
matic Telephone 45 



Answer 
Question. Page. 

How many acres does the New Chicago 

& Northwestern Depot cover ....... 56 

What did the Building cost 56 

Explain the Electric Block Signals for 

Safety on Railroads 55 

What is the advantage of an All-Steel 

Train 56 

Where are the Pennsylvania Tunnels in 

New York 57 

Explain the method and advantage of 

felling trees by Electricity 58 

How long is the Panama Canal 63 

What did the Panama Canal cost the 

U. S 65 

How many cubic yards have been ex- 
cavated so far 64 

How much work is there still to be done 65 
What were the two greatest engineering 

feats accomplished 65 



504 



QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 



Answer 
Question. Page. 

Where are the Locks on the Canal and 

what are the names of them 67 

Describe the Culebra Cut, its length and 

height and number of cubic yards to 

excavate 65 

Where is the largest Power Plant in 

the world 66 

How many horsepower of energy does it 

produce 66 

What Canal is the busiest in the world 67 
Where is the largest Dam in the world 71 
What is the principle of the "One-Rail" 

Railway 72 

Where Is the World's Largest Power 

Plant 71 

What Is the Busiest Canal in the World. 67 
How Many Vessels Pass Through It in 

One Year 67 

What Is a Whalebaek 68 

What will be accomplished by the Lakes 

to Gulf Waterway 69 

How much will it Cost 70 

How did they move two miles of river. . 71 
Where is the largest Dam in the world. . 71 
What is its height? How much water 

does it impound 71 

Explain the principle of the One-Rail 

Railway 72 

What single industry made the Great 

Millionaires 75 

What is the Capital Stock of U. S. Steel 

Corporation 76 

What state contributes the most iron 

ore 76 

How is Iron Ore shipped. 77 

How is Pig Iron made 79 

How is Steel made 81 

How do Miners work underground 83 

Where and How deep is the deepest 

coal mine 85 

What State leads all others in produc- 
tion of Coal 85 

What is the greatest danger in coal 
mining 89 



Answer 
Question. Page. 

What is a coal breaker used for 90 

Where are the great coke furnaces. ... 91 
How is coke automatically handled. ... 92 
What industry was responsible for open- 
ing up Zinc, Lead and Copper mines. . 93 
What is the value of our Mineral Pro- 
ducts 93 

How much Power does Lake Superior 

furnish the "Soo" Canal 95 

Where is the World's greatest Granary 96 
What is the daily Output of the World's 

largest Flour Mill 97 

What Profit do the great Mills make on 

Flour 98 

How has the Freight Tariff on Flour 

changed 99 

Where is the largest Grain Elevator in 

the World 97 

What are outside Storage Tanks in 

Grain Elevators 100 

How much Grain was produced in the 

U. S. in 1909 102 

How many acres do the Forests of the 

World cover 101 

What Country has the greatest acre- 
age 104 

How much Lumber is used in the U. S. 

yearly 104 

How many Railroad Ties are required 

annually in the U. S 104 

How are Logs piled in Burmah 106 

How much standing Timber is cut an- 
nually in the U. S 107 

How are Logs taken to the Mill 108 

How are Textile Fabrics made 110 

What Country leads the World in rais- 
ing Cotton 110 

Who invented the Cotton Gin 112 

Where was the first Cotton Mill in the 

U. S 113 

How much Wool is clipped annually in 

U. S 113 

How do Automatic Feeders for Furnaces 
work 118 



QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 



505 



Question. 



Page. 
Answer 



How many Publications for Farmers 

does the U. S. Government issue 120 

How can you obtain any of the Publica- 
tions 120 

How can you plow five furrows at one 

time 121 

How are Harvesting machines operated 

in Egypt 121 

Wliat are the record yields Grain, Fruit 

Vegetables, etc 122 

How many acres of land has the U. S. 

Government Irrigated 125 

Explain the Government System of Ir- 
rigation 125 

What is the length of the great Dam at 

Assouan, Egypt 127 

What was the old System of irrigating 

the Nile Region 127 

Where is the largest Olive Orchard in 

the World 131 

How large do olive Trees grow in Sicilyl32 
What is the Process of making Olive 

Oil 133 

How long has Rubber been used 134 

Describe the Processes of Kneading and 

Mixing Rubber .134 

What are the Methods of compressing 

and vulcanizing Rubber 135 

How is Rubber Hose made 135 

Where are the greatest Orange Groves 

in U. S.... 137 

Describe an Orange Tree, when fruit is 

ripe 138 

What is the profit per acre of Orange 

Orchards 138 

How many boxes of Oranges are yearly 

shipped from California 138 

How are Oranges sorted and Packed.. 139 
Where does Coffee, Tea and Chocolate 

come from 140 

Where does Coffee grow best 141 

Describe the picking of Coffee beans.. 141 
What is the annual Coffee production 

of the World , 142 



Answer 
Question. Page. 

How much Coffee is annually Imported 
into the U. S 142 

Where are the principal places tea is 
grown 143 

How old is a Tea Plant before it yields 
its first crop 143 

Why do they trim Tea Plants and keep 
them short 144 

How is Tea Cured 144 

How much Sugar is there in a ton of 
Beets 1^5 

Explain the process of making Sugar 
from Beets 146 

Explain how Cane Sugar is made 149 

State the principal Motive Powers of 
the Automobile 151 

What is its mechanical Arrangement. .151 

How is the Power of the Gasoline Motor 
generated 152 

State the "Record" Speed of the Gaso- 
line Motor 152 

How are Automobiles used in Agricul- 
ture 154 

Describe the Automobile Mower 154 

What is the greatest speed made by an 
Automobile 155 

What is the greatest speed made in a 
long distance race 155 

Explain the working of a Gas Engine. .157 

Where is the largest Horse-Market in 
the World 173 

What is the "Kosherman's" Task at the 
Chicago Stock Yards 173 

Of what size are the two largest Mules 
on Record 173 

How large a Business has a Chicago 
Packing House done in a single year. .172 

How are Sheep killed at the Union Stock 
Yards 172 

What becomes of the Stockyards Re- 
fuse 165 

Describe the process of slaughtering 
and dressing Cattle 163 



506 



QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 



Answer 
Question. Page. 

How is Pork officially tested by the j\Ii- 

croscope 161 

How is the Skyscraper built 175 

What kind of Men become good Archi- 
tectural Iron Workers 177 

What was the old style of Foundation 

for high Buildings 177 

Of what are the Building Columns made, 

and what do they carry 179 

What is the average thickness of Walls 

in a modern ' ' Skyscraper " 182 

Where was Paper first produced 183 

When was the first Paper Mill establish- 
ed in the U. S 184 

How are the best grades of Paper made . 185 
How are rags treated to make Paper. .185 
How are Logs used in Paper making. . .187 
What Country leads in Paper-making . . 189 
Can you describe the making of a great 

Newspaper 191 

How many papers can be printed and 

folded in one hour 192 

How are Books illustrated 194 

How are Half -Tones made 195 

How fast can a Locomotive be built. . . .198 
When was the first great American In- 
dustrial Invasion of Europe 201 

Who built the Westinghouse plant in 

England 202 

How much time did the Company save . . 202 
How long is the largest Ocean Steam- 
boat 207 

How fast does it travel 207 

How much Coal is used on a single trip . 207 
State the number of employes on it. . . .208 
Name the amount of Food consumed on 

one single trip 208 

What is meant by Harveyized Metal. .218 

Why did the Dynamite Gun fail 221 

What is Maximite 222 

Describe a Torpedo Boat Destroyer. . . .224 
Who made the first Submarine Boat . . 227 
Explain what is meant by "Armored 
Canoe" 227 



Answer 
Question. Page. 

How do they Coal Battleships at Sea . . 228 
Of what practical use is a floating Dry 

Dock 229 

What is the weight of the Pacific Cable. 231 
Describe the process of making a Cable. 233 

How long is the Pacific Cable 231 

Why are "Acid-Blast" Half Tones the 

best in the World 234 

When, and where was Glass first made. 239 
Where is the Rookwood Pottery works. 241 
Name the most well-known kinds of 

Pottery 241 

Describe how Dishes, etc. are made. . . .242 
Explain the advance in Piano ]\Ianu- 

facturing in the past decade 244 

How does the self-playing Piano oper- 
ate 245 

Describe the Salton salt fields 247 

What temperature must the men work 

in 248 

How much Salt is shipped daily. .... .249 

Describe the drying and milling of Salt. 249 
Where are the other great deposits of 

Salt in America 250 

What percentage of Salt is there in the 

Great Salt Lake 251 

What is meant by "futures" in buying 

and selling Stocks 255 

Explain what is meant by "Bulls" and 

"Bears" 256 

Describe speculating on "Margins". . . .257 

Where are the U. S. Mints 259 

What was the greatest Record of Coins 

struck by the U. S. Mints 259 

Can Rice be grown profitably in the U. 

S., and where 261 

Wliat.will kill "San Jose Scale" in or- 
chards 261 

Explain the "Pure Food Law" and tell 

why it was passed 262 

What is the Method of Cleaning houses 

by suction 262 

What Country leads the World in pro- 
duction of Wheat 263 



QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 



507 



AnsTver 
Question. Page. 
What Countrj^ leads the World in pro- 
duction of Corn 263 

"What Country leads the World in pro- 
duction of Cotton 263 

What Country leads the World in pro- 
duction of Tobacco 263 

What Country leads the World in pro- 
duction of Swine 263 

Wliat Country leads the World in pro- 
duction of Cattle 263 

What Country leads the World in pro- 
duction of Sheep 263 

What Country leads the World in pro- 
duction of Horses 263 

How much Rubber is Mexico now sup- 
plying annually 26-1 

What Country does Opium come from. 265 
What flower is Opium extracted from. .265 
Explain the process of making Opium. .265 
Where did the use of Tobacco origin- 
ate 267 

Who first took Tobacco plants to Eu- 
rope 268 

How long does it take to grow a tobacco 

Crop 268 

What are "suckers" on Tobacco Plants. 268 

Describe the Tobacco Worm 269 

Explain the Drying Process of Tobacco. 270 
What are "wrappers," "binders" and 

"fillers" 272 

What kind of Nails are used in making 

Trunks 275 

Name the material used in the strongest 

Trunk made 275 

Explain how Artificial Ice is made. . . .277 
What is the advantage of Artificial over 

Natural Ice 270 

Where does Ivory come from 280 

Explain how Natives hunt Elephants. .281 
Describe the making of Billiard Balls. .282 
What is the World's annual consump- 
tion of Ivory 284 

Where are the Ostrich Farms in Amer- 
ica 284 



Answer 
Question. Page. 

What is tlie process of making Liquid 

Air 286 

Why can Liquid Air *be boiled on a 

Block of Ice 285 

How can a Rose be frozen hard 287 

How may frozen Butter be pounded 

into a Flour 287 

How may Steel Bars be burned like dry 

. Wood 288 

Ho\y are Stained-Glass Windows made. 289 

Who discovered Luxfer Prisms .292 

Describe how Luxfer Prisms transmit 

light 292 

What is Radium 293 

What is the Value of Radium, and what 

its potential Force 294 

How is Polonium obtained 293 

How is a Radiograph taken 294 

Who invented the Balloon 294 

What is Chronophotography 295 

Describe the Method of Photographing 

the human Voice 295 

How many Miles of Railroad are con- 
tained in the Chicago Stock Yards. .160 
How many persons are regularly em- 
ployed in the Chicago Stockyards. . . .160 
How are Steam Engines run by the 

Sun's Rays 296 

Is it possible to smelt Ores and Minerals 

by Sunshine 296 

What Degree of Heat is developed by 
two yards square of concentrated 

Sunlight 296 

How does Sunlight store electric Power 

for Heating, Lighting, Cooking, etc. .296 
Describe the Operation of the Telegraph 

Printing Machine 297 

What is the cost of a single, Copper, 
Telegraph Wire from New York to 

Chicago 297 

How many Words per minute does the 
Page Printing Telegraph Machine 
transmit and receive 298 



508 



QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 



Answer 
Question. Page. 

What was the old process of Tinning 

Plates 299 

How was this process improved 299 

Describe the modern Tinning Machine. 300 

What is meant by Dry Picking 303 

Describe the Fattening Process in 

fowls 303 

What is the Scalding Process for fowls. 304 
How many fowls can be prepared in 

one day 303 

Explain the Wireless Telephone 305 

What is the Silk Cocoon 311 

Describe the Silk Moth and Silk Worm. 311 
Where was Silk Culture first carried on. 311 

Of what are Lead Pencils made 315 

What process does Graphite undergo in 

this manufacture 315 

What is the process of mixing German 

Pipe Clay 316 

What woods are used for Pencils 316 

What is the finishing process 316 

How long have men tried to reach the 

North Pole 317 

Who reached the North Pole, and when. 318 
Who claimed to have reached the Pole 

but could not prove it 317 

Who nearly reached the South Pole... 318 
How far was he from the South Pole. .318 

What are Electric Scarecrows 319 

Can human life be restored 320 

Why is there such a great war on Plies 

and Mosquitoes 321 

Who discovered remedy "No. 606 "...321 

What is Salvarsan good for 322 

How much money was embezzled in the 

U. S. in one year 322 

What sum of money have Americans 

given for Charitable, Educational, 

and other purposes 322 

Who gave the largest amount 322 

What is the best cure for Consumption. .323 
How many Hunters were killed in 1910.323 
How many died by epidemics in 1910.323 
How many were killed in wars in 1910.323 



Answer 
Question. Page. 

What is the Hague Peace Conference. .323 
What great catastrophes have occurred 

in the past ten years 325 

How much was the money loss in San 

Francisco Earthquake 327 

How many lost their lives in the Italian 

Earthquake 328 

How much did Bank Deposits increase 

in 1910 over 1909 328 

Why was the Civil Service adopted by 

the U. S. Government 330 

How would you go about getting a Gov- 
ernment position 332 

What is the difference in time between 

San Franciso and New York 335 

What City has the largest Public Li- 
brary 337 

How many Colleges, etc. in the U. S.. . .339 
What is the most interesting phase of 

College Life 341 

Where are the Summer and Winter Re- 
sorts located 344 

What are the great winter sports in 

Northern Cities 345 

What is the difference between a To- 
boggan and a Sled 346 

What Country is never at peace 351 

Wkat Country has the largest Stand- 
ing Army 353 

What is the Armed strength of the U. S. 

in times of peace 353 

How many Vessels in the U. S. Navy. . . .353 
What Country has the largest Navy .... 353 
How long is the greater Brooklyn 

Bridge 354 

How high is it from the water 354 

How much did it cost 355 

How are Maps made 355 

How many pieces of Paper are used in 

making a Globe 357 

What are Globes made out of 358 

How many screws in an ordinary watch . 359 
How many steps are there in making the 
"balance" wheel 359 



QUESTIONS AND ANSWEBS 



509 



Answer 
Question. Page. 

Where are the greatest Clock Factories 

in the World 360 

What was the first Mirror made of . . . .361 

How is Mirror Glass cut 361 

How big was the largest Mirror made in 

Chicago 363 

What is Art work in Brass 363 

Explain the process of making a Bell. .366 

What is a "Sham-bell" 366 

What is a "Maiden" bell 368 

What is the largest Bell ever cast. . . .368 
Where is the largest Bell in America. .368 
Explain the boring of Artesian Wells. .368 
How long has Vaccination been in use. .371 

What is the Food Cure 372 

What is the Water Cure 373 

What is the Air Cure 373 

Who invented Homeopathy 373 

How many outlets are there to the 

square inch of the human body 374 

What is the average pulse of a boy 

of ten years old 375 

Within how many days do symptoms 

of Mumps appear 376 

When is Whooping-Cough infectious. .376 
How do you resuscitate a drowning per- 
son 376 

What would you do for a person strick- 
en with sunstroke 376 

If a child swallows poison what should 

you do 376 

What is the primary rv;le for those 

caught in a fire 377 

What is Cremation 378 

If you were going away, what paper 
would you sign so that someone could 

carry on your business 380 

What is a Due Bill 381 

Write a form of Promissory Note.... 382 

What is Single Tax 383 

How much does Chicago's Fire Depart- 
ment cost a year 384 

When is a fire easiest to put out 386 

What kind of cloth will not burn 387 



Answer 
Question. Page. 

Where is Asbestos found in America. .387 

How is Mineral Wool made 389 

What is it used for 390 

What is Artificial Silk 391 

Explain the various Metals, etc. that 

buttons are made of 392 

What is printing type made of 396 

What proportion of letters are there 

in a 3,000 case of minion type 398 

Describe the building of a "Liquid 

Stone" house 399 

What power is used for pumping water 

on the Sahara Desert 400 

Where did Germans first settle in the 

U. S 402 

When was Gold discovered in Califor- 
nia 405 

When was Hawaii annexed 405 

How high is the Liberty Statue 406 

When did the Liberty Bell crack 407 

How many Immigrants arrived in 1909.408 
What proportion of the U. S. population 

live in the prairie region 410 

How is Mail Matter delivered in Alaska. 412 

How many Post Offices in the U. S 413 

How many Post Office employes in the 

U. S 413 

Name the great Fur Trading Co. of Can- 
ada 416 

What City in North America is walled 

in 418 

Name the greatest shrine in Canada.. 419 
Who named the land "Greenland". . . .421 
Describe the flowing of the great Gey- 
sers of Iceland .422 

How high does the water rise 422 

What is the Gulf Stream 423 

Describe the course of the Gulf Stream 

and its effect 423 

Where is the "Malestrom" 424 

Describe the Malestrom 424 

What is "The Spectre of the Brocken".425 
Where is "The Brocken" and describe 
the sight from it 425 



510 



QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 



Answer 
Question. Page. 

Name some of the famous Fountains of 

Palestine 426 

Where is Saghalien 427 

Explain the paradox of Climate 428 

Where is the Arabian Desert 428 

How old are the great Trees of Califor- 
nia 430 

What is the average height of the big 

Trees 430 

How are Glaciers and Icebergs made. .431 

How large are Icebergs 434 

Where does Asphalt come from 435 

How many tons of Asphalt are imported 

annually 436 

Where is "Death Valley" 436 

Where is the most desolate spot on 

Earth 436 

What is Death Valley noted for 437 

How large is Death Valley 437 

When Avas Borax first discovered 441 

Describe the refining of Borax 442 

What is the most wonderful Scenic Dis- 
play in the World 442 

What Rivers flow through the Grand 

Canyon 444 

Where are the Dakota Bad Lands 447 

Why are they called "Bad Lands". . . .448 
How high above sea-level is Crater 

Lake 449 

How large is Crater Lake 449 

Name the most famous Cave in the 

World 451 

Where is the Mammoth Cave 452 

How long are the passages open to vis- 
itors 452 



Answer 
Question. Page. 
Name some of the most interesting ob- 
jects in the Mammoth Cave 452 

Where is the Land of the Midnight Sun. 454 

Why was it so named 454 

What is the Aurora Borealis 456 

Name the World's most tremendous 

Cataract 457 

Where are the Falls of Niagara 457 

Describe some of the most interesting 

points about the Niagara Falls 457 

How far does Sunlight penetrate the 

Ocean depth 461 

Name some of the extinct Animals 463-465 
What is the length of Stellers Sea Coav.469 
What is the number of Atlantic Ca- 
bles and where do they run 489 

What are the Liabilities of the British, 
German and French Cables in Time 

of War 489 

How does the modern Commercial Col- 
lege prepare its pupils for a Business 

Career 490 

What are its Facilities for Instruction. .491 
What things are essential to constitute 

an Ideal Home 479 

State the Number of High Schools in 
Illinois, and the Studies taught there- 
in 477 

Give an idea of the importance of Cour- 
tesy in Domestic Life 475 

What are the chances of a Country Boy 

in a big City 473 

What makes a "Good Letter," and what 

is its effect 474 

Of what use is the Weather Bureau. .489 



INDEX 



A 

Page 

Aerial Navigation 23 

Aeroplanes 23 

Africa, Coft'ee in HO 

Africa, Extinct Animals in 462 

Africa, Hnnting Elephants 280 

Africa, Irrigation in the Sahara 400 

Africa, Ostrich Farms in 284 

Africa, Suez Canal 127 

African Railways 47 

Aid to the Injured, First 376 

Air-Ships 23 

Alligators on the Indian River, Florida . 137 

Amazing Wonders of Nature 421 

America, Borax in 439 

America, Center of Population in the 

United States 409 

America, Compulsory Education in 333 

America, Copper Mines in 93 

America, Crater Lake, Oregon 449 

America, Dakota "Bad Lands" 447 

America, Death Valley 436 

America, Education in 333-338-485 

America, Extinct Animals in 462 

America, Facts about the United States 

403 

America, Flour Mills in 96 

America, Grain Production of United 

States 102 

America, Grand Canyon of Arizona. . . .442 

America, Graphite Mines in 315 

America, Great Caves 451 

America, Great Trees in 429 

America, Hogs Packed and Mai'keted in 

the United States 163 

America, How Immigrants Come to. . . .401 

America, Hudson's Bay Company 416 

Amex'iea, Ifudson's Bay Railway 47 



Page 

America, Olives Raised in 131 

America, Oranges Raised in 137 

America, Ostrich Farms in 284 

America, Salt Fields in 247 

America, Textile Fabrics in 110 

America, the City of Quebec 418 

America, Tobacco Industry in 267 

America, Winter Sports in 345 

American Archives and National Insti- 
tutions 408 

American Colleges and Their Growth. .338 

American College Sports 341 

American Forests, Lumbering in 104 

American Industrial Invasion of Eu- 
rope 201 

American Railways 47 

Ammonia Used in Making Ice 277 

Animals Extinct 462 

Antidotes for Poisons 376-377 

Antwerp, Ivory Market in 280 

Arabia, Coffee in 141 

Archives, American, and National Insti- 
tutions 408 

Arctic Exploration, Peary and the North 

Pole ' 317 

Arctic Regions, Aurora Borealis 456 

Arctic Regions, Glaciers and Icebergs. .421 

Arctic Regions, Greenland 421 

Arctic Regions, Iceland 423 

Arctic Regions, Midnight Sun 454 

Area of the Great Lakes 211 

Arizona, Copper Mines in 93 

Arizona, Grand Canyon of the Colorado 

River in 442 

Armor Plate for Men-of-War 217 

Artesian Wells, How They Are Bored. .368 

Artificial Ice 277 

Artificial Silk, How Made 391 



512 



INDEX 



Page 

Art Work in Brass 363 

Asbestos Cloth That Will Not Burn.. 386 
Asia, Arabia 428 

Asia, Chinese Eastern Railway 48 

Asia, Extinct Animals in 462 

Asia, Manchuria, Railways in 47 

Asia, Tea in China , 140 

Asia, Transcaspian Railway 47 

Asphalt Lake of Trinidad 435 

Atlantic Ocean, Panama Canal 63 

Aurora Borealis 456 

Australia, Extinct Animals in 462 

Australia, Horse Racing in 348 

Australia, Railways of 48 

Australia, Telegraph Lines Across.... 48 

Austria, Salt Produced in 247 

Automatic Telephone 45 

Automobile and Its Development, the. .151 

Automobile Race 155 ' 

Automobile, Speed and Racing 155 

B 

Bad Lands of Dakota .507 

Balloons, Dirigible 23 

Balloons, Military 35 

Banks ..253 

Battles, Naval, in the Future. 225 

Beet and Cane Sugar, Production of . . . .145 
Belgium, Ivory Market in Antwerp .... 280 

Bells and How They Are Made 365 

Bells, Famous and Large 368 

Big Canals, the World's 63 

Big Check, for Eight Million Dollars.. 259 

Billiard Balls, How Made 284 

Bills of Sale 379 

Biplanes 23 

Birds, Extinct 462 

Bituminous Lake of Trinidad 435 

Blast Furnaces 75 

Boards of Trade. 253 

Borax and Its Production 456 

Books and Magazines, How Illustrated. .194 

Brass, Art Work in 363 

Brazil, Coffee in 141 



Page 

Brocken, Spectre of the 425 

Brooklyn Bridge, the Second and Great- 
er 354 

Bucket Shops 253 

Building Methods in Cities 175 

Burbank, The Wizard 123 

Burns and Scalds, What to Do 376 

Busiest Canal in the World 67 

Buttons, their Invention and Manufac- 
ture 392 

c 

Cable Across the Pacific Ocean, First. .231 

Cairo to Cape Railway 47 

California, Borax in 439 

California, Death Valley 436 

California, Great Trees of 429 

California Olive Orchards 131 

California Orange Groves 137 

California, Ostrich Farms in 284 

California, Salt Field in 247 

Camphor Tree, a 266 

Canada, Fur-Trading Companies in. . . .416 

Canada, Pilgrims and Shrines in 419 

Canada, Quebec 418 

Canada, Salt Produced in 248 

Canada, Sports in 345 

Canal, Panama 63 

Canal, Suez 127 

Canals, World's Big 67 

Cane and Beet Sugar 145 

Canyon of Arizona, Grand 442 

Cape Colony, Ostrich Farms in 284 

Caves, Great, of the World 451 

Census 1910, Population of Cities. .499-500 
Center of Population in the United 

States 409 

Central America, Coffee in 140 

Ceylon, Graphite Mines in 315 

Ceylon, Tea in 141 

Cliambers of Commerce 254 

Chariot Race, the Modern 150 

Cheek, Eight Million Dollars in One 259 

Chicago, Great Packing Houses of 159 



INDEX 



51^ 



Page 
Chicago Stock Yards, World's Meat 

Market 159 

China, How Made 2il 

China, Tea in 141 

Chinese Eastern Railway 47 

Chocolate, Coffee and Tea 140 

Cigar Making and Tobacco Raising. . .267 

Cigars and Cigarettes 272 

Cities, Population of Largest 500 

Cit3% Phases of Street Life in a Great. .236 

City Sky-Scraper, the 175 

Civil Service and Its Laws 330 

Civil Service, How to Enter the 332 

Climate, Saghalien, a Paradox of 427 

Clocks and Watches 358 

Coal Mining and Coke Making 83 

Cocoa 140 

Coffee, Tea and Chocolate 140 

Coins of the United States, How Made. .257 
Colleges and Their Growth, American. 338 

Colorado, Extinct Animals in 462 

Colorado River, Grand Canyon of 442 

Color Printing and Illustration 194 

Commerce of the Great Lakes 209 

Compulsory Education 333 

Congo Free State, Ivory from 280 

Conservation of the Forests 487 

Consolidations, Great Railway 59 

Constitution, Launching of the Famous 

Ship 217 

Con.sumption, Outdoor Cure for 323 

Contagious and Eruptive Diseases 375 

Copper Mines. •. 94 

Corn Production in the United States. .102 

Cotton 110 

Country Boys' Chances in a Large 

City 473 

Courtesies of Life 475 

Crater Lake, an Oregot Wonder. .. .449 
Cults and Cures 372 

D 

Dakota "Bad Lands" 447 

Dam, Largest in the World 71 



Page 

Death, Tests of 380 

Death and Life Rates 378 

Death Valley, Borax in 439 

Death Valley, California 436 

Deeds 379 

Deep Sea, Wonders of 459 

Desert, a Salt Deposit in California. . .247 

Desert, Irrigation in the Sahara 400 

Desert of Iceland, Great Lava 423 

Development and Transmission of Pow- 
er 113 

Development of the Automobile 151 

Dinosaurus 463 

Disasters, Famous Earthquake and Vol- 
canic 525 

Discoveries in Medicine and Prolonga- 
tion of Life 370 

Diseases, Contagious and Eruptive. .. .375 
Docks, Floating, for Men-of-War 229 

E 

Earthquake and Volcanic Disasters, Fa- 
mous 325 

East Indies, Chocolate in 140 

East Indies, Coffee in 141 

East Indies, Java 141 

Edison, Thomas A., the World's Fa- 
mous Inventor 10 

Editorial Department of a Great News- 
paper 189 

Education, Compulsory 333 

Education, Modern Methods of Com- 
mercial 480 

Education, the High School's Part in. .477 

Egypt, Suez Canal 127 

Electric Block Signals 55 

Electric Scarecrows 319 

Electricity, Baking Bread by 100 

Electricity, the Telephone 45 

Electricity, the Wireless Telegraph. ... 37 
Electricity, the Wireless Telephone. . . .305 

Elements of Physical Health 374 

Elephants, Ivory Hunting 280 

Embezzlements, Great Increase in 322 



514 



INDEX 



Page 
Emigration From Europe to the United 

States 401, 405 

England, Tea Drinking in 140 

Epidemics and War Losses , 323 

Europe, Belgium 280 

Europe, Coft'ee in 140 

Europe, Extinct Animals in 462 

Europe, Ivory JMarkets in 281 

Explosives 222, 293 

Extinct Monsters 462 

F 

Fabrics, Textile, in America 110 

Facts About Our Postal Service 411 

Facts of All Countries, Noteworthy. . .400 

Fainting, What to Do 376 

Falls of Niagara 457 

Farming, Up-to-Date IMethods in 118 

Fatalities to Hunters 323 

Financial Developments 1910 328 

Financial Methods of Today 253 

Fireproof Cloth 386 

Fire, Rules in Case of 377 

Fires, How They Are Extinguished. . .384 

First Aid to the Injured 376 

First Cable Across the Pacific Ocean. .231 

Flies and Mosquitos, War on .321 

Floating Docks for Men-of-War 229 

Florida, Alligators in 136 

Florida Orange Groves 137 

Flour and Flour Mills 97 

Flying ]\Iachines 13 

Forests, Lumbering in American 104 

Formosa, Tea in 142 

Fur-Trading Companies of Canada. .. .416 
Future, Naval Battles in 225 

G 

Gas Engines 157 

German Emperor's American Yacht.. 353 

Geysers, Iceland and Its 421 

Glaciers and Icebergs, How Made 431 

Glaciers, Greenland and I+s. , 421 

Glass and Its Uses 239 



Page 

Globes and Maps, How Made. ..." 355 

Grain Production of United States in 

Bushels 96, 102 

Grand Canyon of the Colorado River 

in Arizona, Illustration 420 

Graphite and Lead Pencils 315 

Great Buildings 175 

Great Caves of the World 451 

Great City, Phases of Street Life in a. .236 
Greatest Industry, the Railway, 

World's 41 

Great Fur-Trading Companies of Cana- 
da 416 

Great Lakes, Area of the 7] 

Great Lakes, Commerce of 209 

Great Lava Desert of Iceland 423 

Great Libraries of the World 336 

Great Newspapers, How Made 189 

Great Packing Houses of Chicago 159 

Great Railway Consolidations 59 

Great Trees of California 429 

Greenland and Its Glaciers 421 

Gulf Stream .423 

H 

Hague Peace Conference 323 

Halftone Engravings 194-234 

Hammerfest, Most Northern Town.... 454 

Health, Elements of 374 

Health, the Pulse in 375 

High Buildings 175 

High School's Part in Education 477 

History of Paper 183 

History of the United States Greatest 

Facts in 403 

Hogs Packed and Marketed 159 

Holland, Submarine Vessel 227 

Holy Land, Fountains of 426 

Horseless Carriage 121 

Horse Racing the World Over 348 

Housecleaning by Suction 262 

Houses of Liquid Stone 399 

How African Deserts are Irrigated. . . .320 
How a Great Newspaper Is Made 189 



INDEX 



515 



Page 

How Air Ships are i\Iade 23 

How Air Ships are Operated 23 

How American Indiistrj' Has Invaded 

Europe 201 

How Ammonia Is Used 277 

How Artesian "Wells are Bored 368 

How Artificial Silk Is Made .391 

How Asbestos Cloth Is Made. 386 

How Asphalt Is Obtained 435 

How Automatic Feeders Work 116 

How Automatic Telephones Work 45 

How Automobiles Have Developed. . . .156 
How Battle Ships are Armed and Ar- 
mored 218 

How Beet and Cane Sugar are Made . . 147 

How Bells are Made 365 

How Billiard Balls are Made 284 

How Binding Twine Is Made 124 

How Blast Furnaces are Used 75 

How Boards of Trade Operate 253 

How Books and Magazines are Illus- 
trated 194 

How Borax Is Obtained 439 

How Buttons are Made 392 

How Cable Kailways are Operated. ... 113 

How Chocolate Is Cultivated 140 

How Cigars are Made 267 

How Clocks and Watches are Made ... 358 

How Coal Is Mined 85 

How Coffee Is Cultivated 140 

How Coke Is Made 90 

How College Sports are Conducted. . .342 
How Color Illustrations are Printed. . .194 

How Copper Is Mined 93 

How Cork Is Prepared and Used 498 

How Cotton Is Shipped 109 

How Elephants are Hunted 280 

How Extinct Animals are Studied 462 

How Fires are Extinguished 384 

How Flour Is Made 99 

How Glaciers and Icebergs are Made. .431 

How Glass Is Made 239 

How Graphite Is Mined 315 



Page 
How Great Packing Houses are Oper- 
ated 159 

How Halftone Engravings are ^lade. . 

194-234 

How Ice Is Made 277 

How Immigrants Come to America. . . .405 

How Iron and Steel are Produced 75 

How Ivory Is Obtained 280 

How Lead Pencils are Made 315 

How Blubber is stripped from Whales. 94 
How Bread is Baked by Electricity. . . .100 

How Burbauk grafts plants 123 

How Cable Wires Are Made 232 

How Canadians Enjoy the Winter. . . .347 

How Car Wheels Are Made 81 

How Civil-Service examinations are 

Conducted 330 

How Cloth Is Made 110 

HoAV Deserts Are Made Fertile 125 

How Dirigible Balloons are Made .... 33 
How Farmers Have Increased Their 

Crops 121 

How Farming Is Done in the North- 

West 120 

How Fast Automobiles Travel 155 

How Fast Ocean Steamships Travel. .208 

How Flying Machines Are Made 27 

HoAV Gas Engines ilinimize Labor.... 157 

How Glass Bottles Are Blown 240 

How a Great Newspaper Is Made 190 

How Hams Are Prepared 164 

How Hogs Are Dressed 164 

How Hodery Is Made Ill 

How Irrigation Is Accomplished 125 

How Locomotives Are Constructed. . . .197 

How Lumber Is Produced 104 

How Meats Are Canned 168 

How Much Food Is Used on Ocean 

Steamships 207 

How Much Fuel Is Needed for Single 

Ocean Trip 207 

How Orange Groves Are Operated. . . .137 

How People Live in Cities 236 

How Rags Are Sorted 183 



516 



INDEX 



Page 

How Saw Logs Are Shipped 105 

How Sheep Are Dressed 172 

How Steel Is Made 76 

How Steel Rails Are Made 83 

How Taxidermists Work 410 

How the "One-Rail" Railway is Op- 
erated 72 

How the Panama Canal Is Being Built. 63 
How the Safety Device "Block Signals" 

Work §5 

How the Self -playing Piano Works 245 

How the U. S. Government Assists 

Farmers 120 

How the U. S. Government is Protect- 
ing Pood 263 

How Mail Is Delivered in Arctic Al- 
aska 411 

How Mammouth Cave Was Found... 451 

How Maps and Globes Are Made 355 

How Mirrors are Made 361 

How Money Is Coined 257 

How Naval Battles Will Be Fought in 

the Future 225 

How Ocean Cables Are Made 231 

How Olive Oil Is Prepared. 131 

How Opium Is Prepared 265 

How Ostriches Are Raised .284 

How Paper Is Made 183 

How Pianos Have Multiplied 242 

How Pottery Is Made 241 

How Power Is Developed and Transmit- 
ted 113 

How Railways Are Operated 47 

How Railways Are Spreading 49 

How Rubber Goods Are Made 134 

How Salt Is Obtained 247 

How "Sky-Serapers" Are Built 175 

How Stained Glass Windows Are Made 289 

How Tea Is Cultivated 140 

How Textile Fabrics Are Made 110 

How the Modern Theatre Is Conducted 494 
How the Chicago Stock Yards Are Op- 
erated 159 

How the Lumber Industry Operates .... 104 



Page 

How the Weather Is Foretold 489 

How the Wireless Telephone Works. . . .305 

How Tin Is Made 299 

How to Aid the Injured 376 

How Tobacco Is Raised 267 

How to Counteract Poisons 376, 377 

How to Cure Mad Dog Bites 377 

How to Enter the Civil Service 330 

How to Revive Drowned Persons 376 

How Trunks Are Made 274 

How Type Is Made. . 395 

How Wireless Telegraphy Works 37 

Hudson's Bay Company 416 

Hudson's Bay Railway 47 

Human Voice, Snapshots of 295 

Humboldt Glacier 439 

I 

lee, Artificial and Natural 277 

Icebergs and Glaciers, How Made.... 431 

Iceland and Its Geysers 421 

Iceland, Great Lava Desert 423 

Illustrations, Magazine and Book, How 

Made 194 

Lustrations Printed in Colors 195 

Immigrants to America, How They 

Come 405 

Immigration, Statistics of 408 

In a Type Foundry 395 

India, Coffee in 140 

India, Ivory from 280 

Indian River, Florida, Alligators 136 

India, Tea in 140 

Industrial Invasion of Europe, Amer- 
ican 201 

Industries, Iron and Steel 75 

Injured, First Aid to the 376 

Institutions, National, and American 

Archives 408 

Insurance, Life and Death Rates 378 

Invasion of Europe, American Indus- 
trial 201 

Iron and Steel Industries 75 



INDEX 



517 



Irrigatiou 125 

Irrigation of the Nile Region 127 

Ivory, How Obtained and Used 2S0 

K 

Killing Poxiltry by Machinery 303 

Killing Orchard Pests 261 

L 

Lakes, Area of the Great 210 

Lakes, Shipping on the Great 209 

Land of the Midnight Sun 45i 

Largest Cities of the U. S 499 

Largest Dam in the World 71 

Law, Points of 484 

Lead Mines 93 

Lead Pencils, How Made 315 

Legal Facts and Forms 379 

Letter, Value and Charm of 474 

Liberty Bell 365 

Life and Death Rates 378 

Life, Bringing the Dead to 324 

Lightning, Struck by, What to Do 376 

Linotype Machines 190 

Liquid Air 285 

Liquid Stone, Houses of 399 

Locomotives and Their Construction. .197 

Logging 104 

Looking Glasses and Their JManufac- 

ture 358 

Lumbering in American Forests 104 

Lumbering, Saving the Forests 487 

Luxfer Prisms as Light Transmitters. .292 

M 

Mad Dog Bite, What to Do 376 

Maelstrom, the 424 

Magazines and Books, How Illustrated 194 

Making a New Channel 70 

Making Stained Glass Windows 289 

Mammoth Cave 451 

I\Iammoth, Extinct Animals 462 

Man and Nature Before the Deluge. . .468 
Maps and Globes, How Made 355 



Page 

IMasouic Temple, Cliicago. 175 

JMaximite, the New Explosive 222 

iMedical Treatment, Systems of 373 

Medicine, Discoveries in 370 

Melbourne Cup Race 349 

]\Ien-of-War, Floating Docks for 229 

Men-of-War 218 

]\Ieteor, Kaiser Wilhelm's American 

Yacht 353 

IMilitary Balloons 35 

Mince-Meat Made by j\Iaeliinery 161 

Mineral Wool and Its Uses 289 

IMining, Copper 93 

Mining, Iron 75 

Mining, Lead 93 

Mining, Zinc 93 

Mints, How Money Is Made 257 

Mirage 436 

Mirrors and Their Manufacture 361 

IModern Methods of Commercial Edu- 
cation 480 

Monoplanes 23 

Mono-rail Railway 72 

Mosquitos and Flies 321 

Monsters, Extinct 462 

IMoving Two Miles of River 71 

Muir Glacier 421 



N 



National Institutions and American 

Archives 408 

Nationalities in the United States, Mi- 
grations and Settlements of 401 

Nature, Amazing Wonders of 421 

Naval Battles in the Future 225 

Naval Warfare, Progress in IMethods of 217 

Newspaper Printing Presses 189 

Newspapers, Great, How Made 189 

Niagara Falls 457 

Nome, Delivering Mail at Cape 411 

North Pole, Peary and Cook 317 

Notes 379 



518 



INDEX 



Ocean Cables in War Time 483 

Ocean Traffic, Its Stupendous Growth. .207 
Olive Orchards and the Olive Industry. 131 

One-rail Railway 72 

Opium and Its Production 265 

Orange Groves and Their Products. . . .137 

Orchard Pests, Killing the 261 

Ostrich Farms in Africa and California. 284 
Outdoor Cure for Consumption 323 

P 

Packing Houses of Chicago, Great 159 

Palestine, Fountains of 426 

Panama Canal 63 

Paper, Its History and How It Is Made. 183 

Pearls from Amei-ican Rivers 392 

Pencils, How Made 315 

Phases of Street Life in a Great City. . .236 

Physical Health, Elements of 374 

Pianos, How They Have Multiplied. . . .242 

Piano, "Wonderful Self -playing 245 

Pilgrims and Shrines in Canada 419 

Points of Law 484 

Poisons, Antidotes for 376 

Polonium and Radium 293 

Population of Cities in U. S 499-500 

Potter, the Work of the 241 

Poultry Killing by Machinery 303 

Power, Its Development and Transmis- 
sion 113 

Protecting the People's Food 262 

Public Libraries, Their Growth and Ad- 
ministration 336 

Pulse in Health 375 

R 

Racing and Speed of Automobiles 155 

Radium and Polonium 293 

Railways, American 48 

Railway Electric Block Signals 55 

Railway, One-rail 72 

Raihvay, World's Greatest Industry.. 47 

Remedy No. 606 and Its Use 321 

Rice, the Profitable Crop 261 

Rubber Goods, How Made 134 



Salt and Its Production 247 

Science, Sparks of 482 

Self -playing Piano 245 

Ship Building 207 

Silk Cocoons and the Silk Industry. . . .311 

Silk, Artificial, How Made 391 

Single Tax, Its Meaning and Its The- 
ories 383 

Sky-Scrapers, City 175 

Solar Furnace 296 

Sparks of Science 482 

Spectre of the Brocken 425 

Steel and Iron Industries 75 

Stock Exchanges 253 

Submarine Vessels 227 

Sugar, Beet and Cane 145 

T 

Tea, Coffee and Chocolate 140 

Telegraph Machine That Prints 297 

Telegraphy, Wireless 37 

Telephone, Automatic 45 

Telephoning Without Wires 305 

Temperature, How to Measure 374 

Textile Fabrics in America 110 

Theatre, How the Modern Is Conducted 494 

Things We All Should Know 317 

Time, Standard Over the World 334 

Tin Making 299 

Tobacco Raising and Cigar JMaking. . .267 

Tree Cutting by Electricity 58 

Trinidad and Its Bituminous Lake. . . .435 

Trunks, How Made 274 

Type Foundry, In a 395 

Typesetting Machines 191 

W-Y-Z 
Warfare, Naval, Progress in Methods of 217 

Watches and Clocks 358 

Weather Bureau and Its Work 489 

Wireless Telegraphy 37 

Wireless Telephone 305 

Wonders of Nature, Amazing 421 

Work of the Potter 241 

Yukon, Region of the . . .415 

Zinc Etchings igJ^. ..3... 194 



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■^ Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
^ Treatment Date: Aug. 2003 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 



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